New Kid In Town
by Vathara
Summary: Ever wonder what Sunnydale and the Scoobies might look like to someone who has their own secrets? Note, fic unfinished. And at the moment, likely to stay that way. I hit chapter 9 and just got stuck. (RL messes. Oy.)
1. Chapter 1

**New Kid in Town**

A/N: Monochrome Factor and BtVS, not mine. MF picks up after the anime, and goes fixit AU from there. Ever wonder what Sunnydale and the Scoobies might look like to someone who has their own secrets?

* * *

"Come on, pick up, it's only - what, eleven in Japan? I know that's late enough for you to be up-"

" _Bar Still, can I help you?"_

Akira Nikaidou _hmph_ ed, tapping fingers on the phone jack as he looked over the awful mess he'd have to clean up before his mother got back from yet another late work night. "Shuichi. Someone exploded on me. They weren't human. I have weird dust all over my kitchen and it got in the rice. I think I'm ordering pizza."

" _Exploded? Wait - Akira? I thought you were in California."_

Might as well start with the shattered dishes. Akira went after the biggest fragments on the floor, flicking them up and into the trash. "I _am_."

" _And someone exploded."_ Shuichi Wagatsuma sounded more resigned than surprised. But then, the adept had been dealing with the shadow-dwelling kokuchi and like creatures for more decades than Akira wanted to know.

"After I got him with a spoon," Akira nodded, dumping the rice in the trash just to be sure. Adrenaline was still singing through his veins; he liked a good fight, sure, but this one had turned from the expected new-kid hassle into _combat_ , and the battle had been a lot closer than he'd liked. "Tough bastard. He could take more damage than Kengo."

" _A spoon."_ Shuichi sighed. _"I think you'd better start from the beginning."_

"Well, the day kind of went downhill after I met the principal..."

* * *

"Akira Nikaidou." Principal Snyder tapped a manila folder on his desk, a small, sadistic smirk lighting his face. "Getting this translated was worth every cent. Absenteeism, breaking and entering, chronic truancy, disrespect to teachers, explosive destruction of school property... I could go on, but it looks like you've managed to hit every letter of the alphabet."

Slouched in his chair, Akira raised an unimpressed brow. So the little balding goblin of a man had his disciplinary record. Was he supposed to be shaking?

Though under his usual bored mask, he was worried. This place, Sunnydale... it just didn't _feel_ right. He hadn't noticed it too much moving in yesterday - jet lag sucked - but something about this town was wrong. And it was worse inside Sunnydale High.

 _An inversion? No; I'd hear the kokuchi, even if I didn't see them_.

"Ryuuko's spirit has taken its leave of you, and you gave Shirogane his dark power back," Shuichi had told him a few weeks ago; blind eyes closed, absently polishing a glass as he stood behind the bar. "But you still have the pattern of using shadow in your energies. A little longer to heal up, and you'll have the makings of a skilled adept."

Right. Because Akira couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than jump back into mortal combat with whatever monsters Homurabi had sent across the boundary this time. Oh, wait; school and a root canal! Those would make the day _just perfect_.

Though even the prospect of risking his life _again_ didn't seem nearly as important as the first bit of Shuichi's dry news. "Ryuuko's spirit?" Akira demanded. "Are you saying I was _possessed?_ "

"Wasn't it obvious?"

"No!" Argh; why couldn't anyone tell him things _before_ he walked into them?

"Oh." Shuichi pursed his lips, then shook it off. "Kou and Shirogane should have known, if they'd bothered to count human years. But it's easy for shin and rei to lose track of time. I'm lucky to have Mayu to help me keep track of when the taxes are due-"

Akira gritted his teeth. "Just give me a straight answer!"

"I ended up starting this bar as a way to cloak my presence after Ryuuko was assassinated." Shuichi set one glass behind the counter, and picked up the next. "You can see yourself from the sign, we've only been here seven years. Reincarnation can mess with time a bit, but not that much."

He was going to hurt someone. Possibly Kengo.

...Or maybe not, given he did like breathing through intact ribs and his buddy turned dark adept could, by definition, punch harder than any mere human. "Ryuuko possessed me?"

"You are of rei royal blood, and you've been friends with Kengo a long time," Shuichi mused. "His dark factor would have left you picking up background energy, and therefore vulnerable-"

"How does that even work?" Akira cut him off. "Five Children for each King; two Kings for each side. That's _twenty_. And I thought Children were bound by a contract. Blood has nothing to do with it."

"That's not quite true. A King may have more than five," Shuichi noted. "The Children are the strongest rei and shin, and it's easier to make a contract with someone who descends from us. But it is possible to awaken a descendant's power without a contract." A dark brow arched. "Though that's dangerous for shin, unless they can quickly learn to travel into the shadow realm. Death by energy starvation isn't pretty."

That was putting it mildly. Akira had seen Shirogane translucent and fading, before the Shadow King had dissolved out of the realm of light. It still made him shiver. "But that won't happen to me," Akira said flatly. "I'm human."

"...Yes."

Oh, he did _not_ like the little hesitation he'd just heard. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Ah. Your pardon. Old habits." Shuichi shifted his shoulders, half a shrug. "I'm not sure anyone of rei blood has been made a shin before. Much less ended their contract and returned a King's gift to him. You're unique, Akira." A quiet smile. "And I'm glad you've stayed that way. Your courage gave Ryuuko the chance to face the one who ordered his murder. A chance to achieve a measure of... peace, you might say. He should reincarnate properly now."

Akira tried not to shift in place, uneasy. "What would you have done if he hadn't?"

Shuichi paused, face utterly still.

 _He's Shirogane's friend. And Shirogane... he can act silly. But he isn't_ nice.

"I suppose that would have depended on how badly we needed to fight Homurabi," Shuichi said at last. "His darkness was a lethal threat to both our worlds. It still is."

Akira rubbed at the back of his neck, and dragged up some manners. "...Thanks."

"Oh?" A dark brow flicked up, closed eyes creased with interest.

"At least you told me," Akira grumbled. "Shuichi? If you... or Shirogane... if you need me, just tell me." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his school jacket, trying not to fidget. "That's not too much to ask, is it? Don't leave me flailing around in the dark, trying to get a straight answer from my enemies because my friends think I shouldn't know. Just _tell_ me."

The adept sighed. "I wish I could promise you that." Shuichi had set down the next glass, then, and flattened his hands on the bar. "But I can promise I'll try." His shoulders fell. "Though there is something else you should know. About Ryuuko, and your wounds, and what it cost to heal you."

All in all, it'd been the politest potential death sentence Akira had ever heard.

"-Are you even listening, Nikaidou?"

Oh. Right. The goblin. "My mother is grateful your school was able to accommodate our move into the area," Akira said neutrally. _Which is looking like a worse and worse idea every minute_.

Not that he could persuade his mother to move again just because of a bad feeling. Women working in corporate law always had something to prove. Single mothers, even more so. When the company had asked her to move abroad, Akane Nikaidou's only question had been, what flight did they want her on?

"I suppose you think you're cute," Snyder snorted. "You're almost as good at faking as Summers is. But she doesn't fool me, and neither do you. I can't throw you out based on miscreant behavior in Japan. Pity." The principal leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "But one screw-up here, just one step out of line, and I will take extreme pleasure in physically tossing you off this campus for life."

He shouldn't react to that. He really shouldn't.

But he couldn't help meeting Snyder's eyes.

" _You have good eyes,"_ one of Aya's kendo instructors had said; before a kokuchi had possessed the man and sent him on a bloody rampage through the streets. _"You've been fighting."_

Snyder went white around the lips, and slammed Akira's folder back into a desk drawer. "Get to class."

* * *

 _Afterschool detention for looking at the principal funny. This school sucks_.

Akira slung his backpack over his shoulder, hesitating inside the main door so he could glance around at the grounds outside before he risked stepping into open view of the parking lot. Bad feeling or no bad feeling, he was a new kid on his first day, and the odds of being accosted by the local school thugs approached 100%. Frankly, he was surprised no one had tried to corner him yet.

...Scratch that. He wasn't surprised. He was worried.

Akira's lip curled. _Maybe they're all busy working on their science fair projects_.

Yeah, right. He'd only gotten out of signing up today because he'd literally just gotten here. The science teacher had scowled, eyed him suspiciously, then granted him a few days' grace to come up with _something_. Or else.

 _Or else_ wasn't any scarier from him than it was from Snyder. But while normally Akira would blow this off like the rest of school, this time he had to at least try to make an effort. Just for a few weeks. Until Snyder'd had a chance to forget what he'd seen.

 _I don't... I don't want my mother to worry. Not about something she can't fix_.

He'd caused her plenty of headaches over the years, getting into fights with every idiot who thought gray eyes meant _target_ and wouldn't take _you're boring_ as a warning to back off. But the world Shirogane had dragged him into didn't have anything as innocent as fighting in it. And while his mother had never seen him as a shin, thank Amida, much less bleeding and half a breath from dying...

 _She knows. I don't know what she saw, or what she heard. But she_ knows _something's wrong_.

Which, fair enough, it was. But her solution, dragging him _across the world_ from any possible help if a kokuchi poked its head through the barrier and decided to munch on him - it set his teeth on edge.

Oh, and it'd left him dealing with an annoying little goblin of a principal, too.

 _Not to mention a whole new set of school gorillas... aha. There they are_.

Three of them. Of _course_ there were three; no thug felt complete unless he had at least two lackeys to show who was boss. Too muscle-bound to be anything but jocks; not enough brains to take advantage of attending the practices Akira could hear going on around the school grounds. Two were leaning against the parking lot fence. The leader was smoking a cigarette, evidently unfazed by the prospect of goblin-spawned detentions.

 _Right where they can see someone coming out the front, and cut them off from the street. Well, at least they've mastered the obvious_.

Akira faded back inside the school, thinking fast. He could go out there and fight them. Three of them, one of him - even as a human, those odds were in his favor.

 _Get in a fight on the first day. That'd give Snyder what he wants_.

No. He had other options.

 _Side doors, windows... there's supposed to be a skylight in the library_...

He didn't have to go that far. One of the homerooms wasn't locked.

...Well. It wasn't _very_ locked. Honestly, the roof door back at Kiriba Private High School was harder to jimmy. Which made him even more paranoid.

 _It's like they're_ trying _to get kids to break in after-hours_.

Put that together with the hairs-on-the-back-of-his-neck _bad feeling_ Akira'd had since he stepped onto the school grounds - he wanted out of here.

 _Don't be stupid. Look first_.

Coast was clear. He slid out the window, ghosting away from the school and the annoying prospect of violence. His nose wrinkled as he passed a dumpster; chasing kokuchi had dragged him worse places, but the smell was-

 _Death_.

He didn't want to look. He didn't want to _know_.

Steeling himself, Akira swung up the lid.

 _Well. That's new_.

Pieces. Lots of scattered... pieces. He hadn't seen anything this bad since the last time Homurabi's pet psycho Nanaya had cut loose. He wanted to slam the lid, bolt for the street, and not stop running until he was at LAX with a ticket back to Japan.

Akira made himself breathe air tainted with death and formaldehyde, and gently eased the lid back down. Grabbed a stray napkin out of his backpack, and carefully wiped down every surface he'd touched; lifting the lid again, just a little, to be sure he got his thumbprints.

 _Walk. Do not run. Walk_.

Akira sauntered down Sunnydale's streets home, and didn't breathe freely again until he'd thrown every lock on the front door.

 _What do I do?_

Akira dumped his backpack on the ridiculous tan couch the realty agent had decided to inflict upon this house, and tried to think. Back in Tokyo, he would have stopped on the next block and called the cops. He wouldn't have given his name, and he wouldn't have expected them to get very far; that kind of crazy almost screamed parasite kokuchi possession, and kokuchi were a shin problem. But he would have called.

Here? Sunnydale felt wrong. The school felt _wrong_. And he was a foreigner in a country where he'd taught himself to speak and read the language. So far he'd gotten by with a headache and a pocket dictionary up his sleeve. Under police interrogation? He'd seen the movies. The first person to find the body was _always_ the first suspect.

 _Though I might have an alibi. No blood on the cuts. Formaldehyde. Those bodies were dead before I got to California_.

And the fact that he knew that was kind of depressing. Plus, that put him right back on the suspect list; maybe not for murder, but cutting up dead bodies would definitely be all the ammo Snyder needed to toss him out of school.

 _So what do I do?_

First things first. Set up his homework; Kengo's teasing aside, he _did_ do homework. Set up supper. His mother was putting in another long day, and everything would be simpler to explain if she could just grab a meal and go to bed without having to ask him about food. Or school. Or anything.

So. Rice simmering on the stove. Schoolbooks on the living room table; he'd knocked off the math, not a big deal, but English was going to be a headache. And he still hadn't figured out any ideas for a science project. Not when he kept wondering who might be walking around town with a shadow inside them that someone who'd been forcibly turned back to human just couldn't see.

 _Does a shadow exist when no one sees it?_

 _...Wait a minute_. Akira sat up on the couch, recalling some of the other sign-up ideas he'd seen. _It's not exactly scientific, but it uses science. All I'd need is a light, a little solar cell, a voltmeter, and something to cast shadows_.

It wouldn't come anywhere close to the effects of light deprivation on fruit flies. But it'd show he did grasp the idea of things happening even when he personally didn't see them. Compared to "Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable?" it ought to at least get the science teacher to stop looking at him like yet another teenage gorilla.

...Not that he cared what the science teacher thought. He just didn't want his mom to have trouble from the people they had to live with the next year or so-

The doorbell rang.

Argh. The last thing he wanted to deal with right now was more English.

On the bright side, if the gorillas had tracked him down, they were off school grounds. Meaning he could thrash them with impunity.

Moderately cheered, Akira peered through the spyhole in the door.

Huh. Teenager, looked like a senior; not anyone he recalled bumping into earlier today. Letter jacket meant a jock. Annoying. Though jocks generally didn't come for trouble bearing covered dishes. A little hard to see his face, it was shadowed...

 _If he's absorbed some dark energy, he might be able to tell me all the spooky places he's been. If I can check those out, I'll know if there's a kokuchi problem or just some really_ sick _people out there_.

And if it was just some sick person, he could definitely call the cops. With a mental shrug, Akira opened the door. "Hello?"

"Hi! We saw the For Sale sign was down, so Mom sent me over with a casserole. Can I come in?"

"Sure-" Akira's ears caught a hiss of water steaming on a burner. " _K'so_. Hang on, I've got something boiling over."

"Looks nice in here," the teenager observed as Akira headed for the kitchen. "Little empty, though. Still unpacking?"

"Electric burners don't cook like gas does," Akira muttered to himself, using the wooden spoon to get at sticky rice before it could weld itself to the bottom of the pot. "There wasn't that much to unpack, we travel light..."

Something was wrong.

"Huh. Guess you'll have to get new stuff here."

The backsplash behind the stove still had a just-moved-in sheen. Not very shiny, but he could still make out a faint reflection of himself, the pot, the stove...

But not a trace of the visitor whose sneakers had just squeaked on the kitchen's tile floor.

"Hope you didn't burn it too bad," the unseen voice behind him said gleefully. "I'm _hungry_."

Spoon in hand, Akira drove an elbow back in a move that would have laid Kengo out gasping.

It was like hitting a tree. His elbow jolted with pain, his fingers threatened to go numb-

And there were long-nailed fingers reaching for him.

"Ooo, feisty!" The teen's shadow writhed, his face morphing into something that made even some kokuchi look pretty. "I love to play with my food!"

 _Play with this!_ Left hand sweeping over the stove, Akira latched onto the pot handle, and swung.

...It was a really, really bad sign when opponents took a scalding as a reason to just keep laughing.

That was the last coherent thought Akira managed for what felt like an eternity, but what he knew from past experience was probably less than a minute. His opponent was strong, tough, and cruel. But not fast.

 _Don't care what it is_ , Akira concluded as he slipped out of an attempted grapple, _sucking chest wound ought to slow it down_ -

The wooden handle jabbed between ribs with the skill of a veteran knife fighter. His fanged opponent looked... surprised.

 _Poof_.

* * *

"And that's when I called you." Akira took a look inside the casserole dish. Shuddered, and dumped it in the trash. Forget the human-shaped-dust- _thing_ that had attacked him; the mold-monster in there could qualify for the Gojira lineup. He didn't care when rubbish pickup was around here, that bag was getting out of this house tonight. "What was that thing?"

There was a long pause. _"Where are you in California, exactly?"_

"Sunnydale," Akira frowned. "What does where I am have to do with-"

" _You're on the_ Hellmouth?! _"_

"Hellmouth?" That was not a squeak. No one would ever prove otherwise.

" _There are more dangers in the world than just the balance of light and shadow,"_ Shuichi said soberly. _"Akira, you're in grave danger. Don't open the door to anyone you don't know after dark - and_ never _invite someone in."_

"Too late," Akira said wryly.

" _No; you destroyed that vampire, you'll be fine. Just don't issue any other invitations."_

"Vampire?" Akira sputtered.

" _Shirogane will explain."_

"Like he ever explains anything-" Akira's brain caught up with his ears. "Shirogane's alive?"

" _And he owes me one,"_ Shuichi said cheerfully. _"You'd better order your pizza. It's going to take me a few hours to get what you need."_

"What I need? Wait, you're not expecting me to get answers out of Shirogane-"

Dial tone. Argh.

And he still had half a kitchen to clean up. And bruises to hide. Which meant he had to work fast.

 _Vampire?_

* * *

 _They know. People around here_ know _something_.

Akira sat on his bed in the dark - fully clothed, he _knew_ Shirogane - and quietly stewed. His mother had given him a definite look when she'd gotten home to a table set with pizza and salad. And the less said about her thoughts on the garlic breadsticks, the better.

 _Discounted with every order after 5 PM!_ the pizzeria had declared. With an undertone of, _and if you don't order them, we're not delivering_.

Given the reputation of vampires and garlic, not to mention what he'd found in the school paper - yeah. The locals definitely knew something.

Which led to chilling thoughts about how long his attacker had carried around that moldy casserole. How many For Sale signs had been taken down in Sunnydale, cueing in the monsters that here was someone who'd be easy prey?

 _Monsters. Shuichi said_ that _vampire. That means there's more. How many vampires are there in Sunnydale? Do they know that one of their own went missing?_

 _Are they going to try again?_

The room seemed to shiver, as if a breeze had blown through the closed bedroom window. "My. So pensive, Akira-kun."

Black hat. Black suit and coat. Long-skulled staff. All made brighter by that incredible braid of white hair, and that smirk painted in peach lip balm. "Shirogane," Akira said numbly. "You look good." Solid, and moving with an ease no injured person could pull off. He didn't know whether to be relieved, or...

"I do, don't I?" Shirogane preened, the tip of his cane firmly planted on the floor. "Amazing what a few weeks in the shadow realm can do when Homurabi's Children are too busy to hunt me-"

No, definitely not relieved, Akira decided. "You _bastard!_ "

"Eh?"

A human wasn't fast enough to punch out a Shadow King. But that wasn't the point. The point was to _try_.

A few minutes later, Shirogane perched weightlessly on the foot of his bed, lips curved even more into a smile. "Feeling better?"

"A little," Akira panted, knees giving out as he flopped down on the edge of the bed. "You idiot. I had to hear you were still alive from Shuichi? Who were you planning to have tell me, Kengo?"

"Why, Akira-kun." Blue eyes twinkled. "You almost sound as if you worried about me."

"I _did_. Bastard."

Shirogane blinked, nonplussed. "You... did."

"I didn't want to be caught up in your war," Akira said bluntly. He'd spent the past few hours thinking over what he might say; he just hoped he'd picked the right words. "I didn't want to kill people if we couldn't break a possession in time. And I didn't want to give up everything that's _me_ just so you could have your Light King back." Pause. Take a breath; try not to gulp it. "But I never wanted you to die."

"Never?" One elegant brow arched, as the shin leaned forward. "Two kings of Shadow, one of Light dead, Shadow threatening to overwhelm the world, and you still say never? I know it occurred to you."

"As one of Kengo's stupid ideas, maybe," Akira shot back. "You just wanted to destroy me. Homurabi would have killed everything human."

"Destroy?" Shirogane sat up, startled. "Is that what you-"

Akira cut him off. "What else would you call it if someone took over your life, forever? _I'm not Ryuuko_."

"No," the shin said quietly, blue eyes dark with thought. "I see now that you are not."

"Good." Akira relaxed a hair. "So stop being so creepy and turning up in my bed. It's _my_ bed. And I don't want anyone else in it."

"Anyone?" Shirogane blinked, innocent as a white kitten. "But I was just being your shadow."

"Anyone," Akira grumbled. "You've scarred me for life, you pervert." He cracked his neck, hoping they'd gotten all the touchy-feely stuff out of the way. "Shuichi said you'd tell me about the Hellmouth. And vampires." Which was twisting the blind adept's words so far they'd probably scream assault. But you couldn't give Shirogane one inch. Ever.

Blue eyes went wider. "It's a very bad place, and they're very evil creatures?"

Akira heaved a sigh.

The pale head dipped. "You don't have to stay here, you know. I have the strength to take you through the shadows, back to Japan. No one would even be surprised. People disappear in Sunnydale all the time."

"I know." Akira reached for the thin sheaf of paper he'd left on his bedstand, already turned to the appropriate page. "Read this."

Frowning, Shirogane took it. Squinted a bit, then seemed to realize it was English and started reading left to right.

From his flinch, Akira knew when he'd hit the dates.

Shirogane lowered the page, as if distance would change the words. "This is-!"

"An obituary column," Akira said grimly. "The _high school paper_ has an obituary column." He fisted his hands on the blankets. "So don't tell me you can help me run away."

"...Very well." Shirogane's eyes closed a moment, as if to arrange his thoughts. "You're familiar with tears and portals between the world of shadow and that of light. For all the damage they can do, they're still a natural phenomenon. Both are necessary for the universe as we know it to exist." The Shadow King glanced up, eagle-fierce. "The Hellmouth is different. It leads to _somewhere else_. A universe violently different from our own; a dimension that was never a natural part of our world. A place inhabited by creatures that those who survive them can only call demons and devils, because a human mind can only perceive so much of evil before it shatters."

Akita swallowed hard.

"Homurabi would drown the world of light in shadows, if he could," Shirogane said seriously. "But if the true demons, the Old Ones, were ever to invade our world, he would be our staunchest ally. He wants humans to die. What the Old Ones want is _worse_."

 _Slow breaths_ , Akira told himself. "If you're trying to scare me... it's working."

"I wish I were," the shin murmured. "The Hellmouth is... hmm. Somewhat like a half-sealed tear. Creatures can't get through it, unless it's deliberately opened. But it leaks demonic energy constantly, and that flow draws evil creatures who are already dwelling in this world."

Akira nodded. "Vampires."

"Among other things." White-gloved fingers unfurled, as if offering the story. "They say the last of the Old Ones driven from this world corrupted the blood of a dying human. It spawned a lesser demon, a possessing evil entity, that incubated in a victim's body and then rose up to hunt the living by night. A bite alone will not pass the curse. They must feed you their blood."

"Good reason to bring my own bentos," Akira grumbled.

Shirogane stared, aghast. "I'd never considered that."

"Maybe they haven't either. You should have seen his casserole." Akira worked his fingers into looser fists. "So how do I fight them?"

"You shouldn't fight them at all," the shin said flatly. "They're much stronger than humans. Some of them are faster. And some, the truly dangerous ones, can cloud and enthrall minds, worse than any possessing kokuchi. Your will is strong enough to resist such enchantments. Most of those around you won't be. You survived because this one wasn't expecting a fight."

"Neither was I," Akira shot back. He was not going to back down on this. "They're looking for outsiders. People who don't have a clue how to protect themselves. So what do I do when they come looking for me?"

Smiling, Shirogane handed him a box of exorcising salt.

"Oh. Right," Akira deadpanned. "Because this works _so well_ on evil spirits."

"It's actually much more effective on true demons than on kokuchi and shadow energy." Shirogane waved an instructing finger. "It won't kill them, but it will distract them long enough for you to run."

The wooden box felt like light, somehow. Like sun on bare skin, and a quiet morning breeze.

 _Only one problem_. "So what happens when I can't run?"

"Ah." Shirogane stood, hands clasped on his cane. "That will be trickier. In Japan, I'd simply give you an adept's weapons. Here, many of the humans in power have been compromised by evil. Even daylight isn't safe. If you're determined to stay, you need weapons humans can't find."

Akira eyed him warily. "Is this going to be another one of those 'trust me' situations?"

Shirogane's pale cheeks might have had a trace of pink. Maybe. "Truly, I was about to ask if you would be willing to try something dangerous."

He'd planned to ask? That was almost enough reason to say yes right there. "Go on," Akira said neutrally.

"Homurabi knows you burned through Ryuuko's energy, and exhausted yourself," Shirogane obliged. "He may not know Ryuuko's spirit has left you entirely." The shin's hand slipped into his vest, and came out with-

 _Light_.

A blue rose, no larger than Akira's thumbnail, caught in a pendant of frosted crystal. The petals glowed from within, light tracing veins and thorns like foxfire against the night-black setting.

Shirogane drew a deep breath, then closed the rose away in its black locket. "This was a gift."

"Shirogane," Akira cut in, alarmed. That sadness on Shirogane's face... he knew whose gift it had to be.

The Shadow King raised an imperious hand. "This was a gift, and I will miss it," he said simply. "But if it will allow Ryuuko the time to grow into his memory and his powers, it is well worth it." He met Akira's gaze, unyielding. "And if carrying it for a time will allow you to defend yourself, it is also worth it."

Whoof. "It's a weapon?" Akira asked cautiously.

Shirogane shook his head. "It is Light. But as humans are beings of both light and shadow, carrying a shard of Ryuuko's light will allow you to also carry shin weapons."

 _Ryuuko's light. And Homurabi might not know what really happened_. "You want me to be a decoy."

The shin gave him a dark-coated shrug. "I did say it was dangerous."

Yes, he had. "Do you think Homurabi would come here?"

"I don't know. I would hope not." Shirogane's face was still. "Are you willing?"

What the hell. Homurabi might come looking for him anyway, just for kicks. The rogue shin were like that. "What do I have to do?"

Shirogane sat down on the bed beside him.

Of course. Akira tried not to sigh. For an eons-old shadow, Shirogane could be clingy.

"Hold out your hands," Shirogane murmured, "and duck your head."

 _Duck?_

The black chain dropped over his head, sliding down to rest against his buckled collar. Heat seemed to lick up the chain and through his shirt from the locket, searing into his heart. Too much heat, too much light; like standing in the Sahara under a thousand suns-

Ice. Drowning. _Pain_.

Akira coughed and choked as if he'd just been dragged out of an icy ocean. Cold and dark shivered through his hands, through his veins; surged like a tide against the light and bid it cease.

 _This far, and no further_.

Shirogane had one hand supporting his wrists, holding them up as his arms trembled. His free hand was combing through Akira's brown hair - it _was_ still brown, thank the Buddha - as the shin whispered ancient, half-heard words.

 _Almost sounds like a lullaby_...

Oh, hell no. "I'm alright," Akira coughed, trying not to lean on Shirogane. "I'm-"

Blood.

Translucent silver blades, sunk to their dark-wrapped hilts in each palm.

 _Pain_.

" _Are you out of your goddamn_ mind? _"_

"Hush," Shirogane ordered. "Pain is a shadow. Control it. Make them part of _your_ shadow."

Oh, sure. Control the fact that he was in bleeding, screaming pain because some idiot shin had shoved knives _through his hands_ -

 _Shin knives. Shin weapons are... shadow and will_...

He remembered how to form his blades. And how to dismiss them.

 _Reach into the sharpness; the shine and shadow of steel. Make it part of your resolve. Make it_ yours.

Chill and pain melted.

Shaking, Akira flexed whole hands, dried blood flaking away from fresh scars. "You could have warned me!"

"If you'd flinched, I might have cut a tendon. Even with Master's salves on hand, that would be tricky to heal." Shirogane's face was still serious. "Keep those for emergencies. Use the salt and mundane weapons if you can; you've already proven that a wooden stake to the heart is the surest kill. But above all, use your _mind_. I'm not strong enough yet to bring other help to you at need. Not Aya, and certainly not Kengo. Not on the Hellmouth. Dark and demonic energy at once? It'd be too much of a risk."

Yeah. Kengo had a little... berserking problem. Kou was training him to handle it, but even Kengo would admit he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Better to give him as much time to practice as possible. "So what else ends up attracted to a Hellmouth?" Akira flexed his fingers, trying to get the ghosts of pain out of his hands. "I don't think vampires care about cutting up dead bodies."

"You'd be surprised. The demon keeps many of the victim's memories. Turned coroners can be quite spooky," Shirogane mused. "Though I've heard most master vampires won't allow them to be created. They tend to take advantage of their first stab at a body to pare down the competition." Blue eyes sparkled. "But if you really want to know, I suppose I could give you a start..."

The binder that landed in Akira's lap threatened to crush his knees. "You realize, my school textbooks aren't this heavy," Akira said dryly. " _All_ of them."

"Survival should be more important than school, don't you think?" Shirogane leaned over his shoulder, flipping it open near the beginning. "See? The bakeneko."

Akira eyed the entry, complete with illustrating diagrams. Including one that showed Shirogane assaulting the corpse-eating cat with a drawn blade, just like the traveling exorcist in Kengo's wild version of How We De-Possessed My Sister (No, Really). "...Why do I even ask?"

Shirogane chuckled. "There's much to be learned, if you mean to hunt more than light and shadow."

Uh-oh. That was the Shadow King looking speculative. "What now?" Akira asked warily.

"Hmm... only wondering." The shin laid his cane across his lap, gaze still on Akira. "It's good to see you when you're not bored."

Not bored? Who could be bored when a vampire tried to turn them into snack food-

Akira peered down the tracks where that train of thought was heading, and tried to bury it in a landslide. "I hate fighting."

"You hate fighting without a purpose," Shirogane said firmly. "But when you have a reason, a place or people to defend-"

Akira cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand. "Ch'. Keep that up, and you'll be starring in one of Kengo's stories about us as space heroes with blasters." He missed that optimistic idiot. Damn it. "If everybody who fights monsters is as head-in-the-clouds flighty as you two, why hasn't Sunnydale been sucked dry? Come to think of it - why's the world still here?"

"I am not flighty," Shirogane huffed. Tapped his fingers on his cane, and smiled.

Automatically, Akira catalogued the nearest exits.

"If you really want to know how your high school survives on the very Mouth of Hell..." Blue eyes gleamed, almost cat-slitted. "I suggest you ask your local librarian."

* * *

A/N: It's never said how long ago Ryuuko was killed, and Homurabi himself is uncertain how many years it's been. But the Aging Bar (Bar Still in the anime) has a sign "established 2001", with the manga out in 2008, and the details on Shuichi as Rei King make it clear he's been hiding from Homurabi there. From canon, we know that Homurabi went after Shuichi around the time that he hit Ryuuko. Admittedly, we don't know if that's the _only_ place Shuichi's been hiding. But there are enough loose ends left in the official canon that the timeline is _fuzzy_.

So, this is an AU fixit fic for MF. But I tried to hang the fixit on canon.

Ms. Akane Nikaidou - we don't know his mother's name in canon, I'm sticking to one I invented for an earlier story.

Buffy timeline: this fic starts during the ep. "Some Assembly Required."


	2. Chapter 2

The school's outside door locks weren't much harder to get past than the classroom doors. A careful jiggle in the early morning light, and Akira was in.

 _Careful. If the goblin catches you, he'll probably throw you in detention again for_ wanting _to be at school_.

Not that he wanted to. He'd thought Sunnydale was just shadowed. But Shirogane was shadow, all the mischief and surprise and danger of what you didn't know was hidden in the dark. Sunnydale was something else.

 _Bones in the night, still wet with blood_.

But at least there was someone doing something about it.

"Shin and rei don't usually tamper with Hellmouths," Shirogane had told him. "There are other creatures who try to keep them under control. One of the most effective organizations at limiting the damage is human. They call themselves the Watcher's Council. Their current representative in Sunnydale is an old contact of Shuichi's; though he only knows Master as an adept who studies shadows, not a rei. His name is..."

Akira ghosted inside the library, making his way through the stacks toward the scent of tea growing cold. "Mr. Giles?"

The librarian glanced up from a sheaf of stapled photocopies, glasses glinting in the early light. "Akira Nikaidou?" He even pronounced it correctly. "Wagatsuma-san said you might be stopping by. Something about a bit of local trouble with an unwelcome neighbor?"

"That's one way to put it-" Akira cut himself off mid-gripe, registering the title of the article under Giles' hand. "'The unholy spark; galvanic stimulation of technically deceased motor neurons as potential necromantic component'? _Fortean Electromagnetics_ \- there's a journal? We had to look for rumors of ghosts and hope we got lucky..."

 _Necromancy. That's magic with the dead. Animating skeletons. Zombies. Ghouls_.

Akira leaned on one of the sturdier bookshelves, hoping he didn't look as pale as he felt. "Body parts. Necromancy and science. You have a _Frankenstein_."

Giles almost whistled. "Do you know, I'd begun to despair of hearing anyone use that name accurately. On this continent most people seem to connect the name from Mary Shelley's sensational account with the monster, not the creator." The librarian's gaze sharpened. "How did you know about the body parts?"

 _This isn't going to be easy_. "Master Wagatsuma said it was better if I didn't call the police," Akira said cautiously.

"Unfortunately, I have to agree with him." Giles sipped his tea, only a slight squinch around his eyes registering that it'd gone quite cold. "I doubt many of them are actively corrupt, but - the majority of people will find the most mundane explanations for unusual events. Wild dog attacks in the principal's office. Sudden cataract onset in a healthy teenager." The librarian's eyes narrowed. "Gang members on PCP."

"PCP doesn't make you explode into dust," Akira pointed out.

"So I've heard." Behind glass lenses, blue eyes weighed him. "What do you think you saw?"

"He had fangs," Akira said levelly. There was no point in getting angry over being tested. Not until after he had answers. "He didn't have a reflection. He asked for an invitation to come into our house, before he grew a demon-face and tried to tear my throat out. He was stronger than anything human, and he turned to dust when I put a wooden spoon between his ribs. I'd call that a vampire. What do you call it?"

For a moment, Giles sat very still. One brow went deliberately up. "A spoon."

 _He's looking at my hands_ , Akira realized. _Why?_

"And you say the vampire asked for an invitation into your house," the librarian went on. "I've spoken to a press person about those remains." His voice gained an edge, like Shirogane about to transform his cane into a lethal blade. "They were certainly not discovered near your house."

 _He's protecting someone. And it's definitely not me_.

Which made sense. Unfortunately. Akira sighed. "So Principal Snyder already warned you about me."

Giles sat up in his chair. "I beg your pardon?"

"You don't have to." Akira tried not to be bitter. "The vampire was pretending to be another student. Sunnydale has problems with insane people trying to mess with the supernatural. And I have a record." At least part of which had been honestly earned; he _was_ supernatural trouble. If only because Homurabi's shin had been after Ryuuko. "He may be an evil goblin, but the principal would be failing his students if he didn't protect them from people like me."

The librarian blinked at him, aghast.

 _Sorry, Master. I don't think I'm going to find help here_.

He was surprised how much that hurt. Not because he'd trusted strange teachers; he didn't. But he'd trusted _Shuichi_. The rei might not tell him all of the truth, but he'd never lied. And he'd never been this wrong.

 _So, what did you expect?_ Akira reminded himself. _You're the foreigner here. Hellmouth. Sunnydale has enough of its own problems_.

Well. At least he could avoid adding to them. "I saw them in a dumpster after detention," Akira stated. "They were already dead, and I wasn't sure who'd left them, or if that person who was responsible for the cutting-" gah, you had to be a lot more circuitous to get that across in English, "-would be back. So I just got out of there." He weighed his options, decided on _careless punk_. "Should I bother showing up for class, or just head out while you write me up for Snyder?"

"Write you up for-!"

It was more of a choked noise than words. Akira shifted his weight, ready to dodge, toss salt, or throw a punch. The last time he'd heard that much suppressed fury in a voice, he'd had to drag a kokuchi out of yet another possessed victim.

 _Shin can drag them out. I_ can't. _I'd have to beat it out of him. And hope it let go before I killed him_.

"Young man, Principal Snyder is many things, but a responsible guardian of the lives within these walls?" Giles harrumphed. "I assure you, that he is most definitely _not_."

So... not possessed. Just seriously ticked off. Thank Amida. "So who keeps the Hellmouth from opening and eating the rest of the world?" Akira shot back.

There was a rueful flicker in blue eyes, as if the librarian had realized he'd just walked into that one. "I suppose that responsibility would be mine."

* * *

 _Wagatsuma, what on earth have you dropped in my lap?_ Giles wondered, as Akira disappeared out the library door. Heading for homeroom, the Watcher hoped. That threat to just leave school had been all too casual, and apparently the young man was in enough trouble with Snyder already.

He needed information, dash it all. Yet much would simply have to wait until the latest crisis was past and he could call at an hour a supposedly innocent Japanese bartender would have free. Wagatsuma's message had been necessarily short and vague; one simply did not leave incriminating details about the supernatural on an answering machine.

" _Good evening, Giles. I've just found out that a young friend of mine has moved into your town. He's already had one close encounter with a local in your area of study. There was a spoon."_

Which had been an utterly _odd_ detail for his old acquaintance to include, Giles had thought on first listening to it. Why on earth mention a spoon, of all things? Though, given what he knew about vampires and their demons' tendency toward sadistic torture - oh, dear Lord, the possibilities had been chilling.

Well. Indeed there had been a spoon. And not at all in any way he would have expected-

No, that wasn't quite true. Before he'd known Buffy, and her unorthodox use of everything from No. 2 pencils to Exacto knives, he would have been surprised. Even, perhaps, a bit offended; the Council trained Watchers and Slayers to _slay_ , not to improvise.

Now he was only relieved. And perhaps a bit tickled. Oh, to have seen the look on that vampire's face.

" _I've advised him to speak with you,"_ the healing adept had gone on. _"Please look after him; he is a good friend, and someone to whom I am deeply indebted. He was badly injured by something in my area of study a few months ago, and he is not yet as recovered as I would like. You may have to sit on him."_

Given Wagatsuma's area of supernatural expertise were the little-known spirit-monsters of Light and Shadow some Europeans called _mares_ or _moroi_ , that was daunting in itself. They were possessing entities, creatures that could unlock the darkest desires in a human soul and set it loose without any reins of morality. Even a Slayer might not survive an encounter with a moroi in one piece.

Then again, Buffy was no ordinary Slayer. And her friends had certainly proven that a quick and lucky teenager might survive perils a trained Council Watcher would hesitate to face. Giles might not consider Akira _lucky_ , anyone who'd already drawn Herr Fuehrer Snyder's attention had obviously run short on luck of the fortunate kind, but the young man was quick.

 _Let's hope he's sensible as well_.

For that, the Watcher meant to cross his fingers and pray. Their would-be Frankenstein had to be his first priority.

And the fact that Akira had identified their suspect as that, instead of one of the nigh-innumerable man-eating demons out there, was pause for serious thought.

"Frankenstein?" Giles had asked, setting the article aside.

"They were cut up, not consumed," Akira had replied. "Bakeneko eat the whole corpse, and impersonate the body. Kamitachi steal your liver and leave you walking around alive, for a while. Kelpies and other river monsters tend to eat your face or suck out your internal organs. Man-eating warehouses leave hair and bloody clothes behind." The young man had shrugged. "I don't know what else is out there. But everything I do know - there were too many pieces. Or too _few_."

Concisely reasoned, Giles thought now. A _researched_ answer, from a young man who radiated as much lethality as Buffy surrounded by arrogant jocks. A teenager who paid attention to details, even in the wake of nearly being consumed by a creature of the night modern life swore was a myth. Paid attention, remembered, and _reported_ ; even details as unbelievable as a journal article on necromancy, or a spoon turned deadly weapon. Something Wagatsuma had apparently intended him to notice. Very, very interesting-

"Giles!" Buffy, storming through the door with a stake already flipped up against her wrist, as if she expected the Anointed One and his minions to be pouncing in blackout garb. "Are you okay? I saw that new kid sneak out of here, I _told_ you he gave me a wiggins-"

"And you were quite correct," Giles nodded gracefully. Buffy was usually quite busy enough picking out the undead by the fashion disasters; any attention she could give toward sharpening a Slayer's sense of the mystical should be recognized. "Akira has indeed dealt with the supernatural in the past. Fortunately, someone I trust has vouched that he was a victim of certain creatures, not tainted himself."

White knuckles relaxed on her stake. A little. "Creatures?"

"There are many names for them, but the most accurate, I think, are Shadowfolk and Lightfolk," Giles summed up. "I can give you more details tonight; I should refresh my memory on the lore anyway. For now - Akira knows vampires exist, he knows a Watcher is keeping tabs on the Hellmouth, and he's stated that he plans to go home after school and start crafting some preliminary protections to encourage the local nightlife to look elsewhere. He does _not_ know of the Slayer, or your friends."

"Protections?" His Slayer frowned. "You never said anything about protections."

"They're relatively minor charms; more folk blessings than any true magic, meant to misdirect predatory attention from a home rather than provide active defense," Giles sighed. "I'm afraid a Slayer's innate power is far too much to hide in such a manner..."

Buffy had made the stake vanish completely, gaze half-angry, half-pleading.

"But Willow and Xander are not Slayers," the Watcher belatedly realized. "Yes, of course. I'll walk you all through the ritual as soon as the supplies arrive."

"Best Watcher ever," Buffy smiled up at him. Glanced over her shoulder, as if she could see through walls to wherever Akira had gone. "Wait. If it wouldn't help a Slayer anyway, why were you getting the stuff?"

"Exorcising salt has many more uses than simple wards," Giles noted. "Properly applied to that infernal scanner, it might well have nipped that Moloch mess in the bud-"

The warning bell rang.

"Buffy!" He held up two fingers before she could dash out the door. "I don't yet know why, but Akira believes Snyder may have some clue that the supernatural exists."

"The troll? You've got to be kidding." Buffy shook her head in disbelief. "Okay, crazy as it sounds, we should probably poke that once we get assemble-a-girl stopped. What's behind door number two?"

"If Akira is ever turned, break out the crossbow," Giles said grimly. Thinking of a misspent youth on the streets with dark magic, and a young man's all-too-familiar callus and scars. "He's a knife fighter."

* * *

 _Maybe it's not being a foreigner_ , Akira thought glumly, using the pre-game crush to sneak past the gorilla thugs before he struck out into Sunnydale's streets again. _Maybe it's just me_.

He'd never been fond of sports back in Japan, though watching Aya take kenjutsu instruction had been oddly interesting. But since the night he'd fought back to back with Shirogane until dawn... sports just didn't seem to matter. He could see the frantic energy of everyone getting ready for the game. He could hear the rush and chatter of gossip that marked who was in and who was out, and _in_ was definitely those rooting for the Razorbacks. He could observe it all, a mass of humanity coming together with one common purpose, just like Japan.

He just couldn't _feel_ it.

 _Better look average in gym class. Hell, I should look clumsy if I can_ , Akira thought bitterly. _If some idiot coach shoved me onto a field with a swarm of foaming jocks, someone would get_ hurt.

And he was bound and determined it wouldn't be him.

Akira stopped on a street corner, checking he still had hours of afternoon light before he grimaced and thumped his fist against his forehead. _Am I crazy? Do I_ want _a fight?_

Impossible. Shirogane might say he did, but he'd been in enough combat to know nobody sane went looking for mortal peril. If running away would solve the problem, you ran. Hopefully dragging along any other idiots who'd gotten themselves mixed up in the shadow-mess with you. If running wouldn't solve the problem...

Well. There was a reason he was avoiding the idiots. At least until the new kid label had some time to wear off. If he could rebuild his reputation as cool and aloof before anyone jumped him, he'd have tilted the social battleground in his favor. Three thugs jumping on the new kid, no matter how well he came out, would solidify the mob decision that he was a target. Three thugs jumping the cold loner and getting their asses handed to them would pretty much ensure the rest of the school year passed with minimal violence.

Somehow, the fact that he knew that was even more depressing than a dumpster full of body parts.

 _First things first_ , Akira told himself, unlocking his front door. He stood by the threshold a moment, just listening, in case something other than a vampire had managed to find its way into their house. _At least Mom hasn't clued in that Sunnydale High doesn't have afterschool clubs like they do in Tokyo. I should have enough time to ward the house and wrestle with my homework_ -

There was a quiet _sklorch_ inside.

 _In the kitchen_.

Backpack set silently on the floor, Akira crept inside, saltbox in hand. He didn't see anything, nothing smelled out of place-

 _Sklorch_.

He knew that sound.

Akira dropped into a crouch, edging up to the counter that marked off the kitchen from the dining room. Ducked his head under linoleum, and looked.

A mist-pale creature, no bigger than a squirrel, stood on its haunches as it dipped claws and beak into a spot of darkness hanging in midair.

 _By the stove. That's where I fought the vampire. The boundary between light and shadow must have weakened overnight. Enough to tear_.

With every _sklorch_ , the tear shrank; as if the white beak were patient rain on sand.

"Hakua," Akira breathed, as pupil-less blue eyes turned toward him, then back to its work. Good. Hakua didn't attack humans, not unless they were already possessed. They were creatures of light, like rei, mending this side of the world. It probably wouldn't even notice him again, unless he did something stupid. Give it a few hours to work, and the kitchen would be safe.

 _But it's so small._

 _Can I do it? Should I even try? I've read Shuichi's instructions, and I did it with Shirogane... when I was a shin. I can't handle anything serious now. A human can't channel that much energy_.

But this one wasn't serious. Just a slice of shadow in the air, thin as a pen and not much longer.

Akira breathed deep, and sighed. Took out a pinch of salt, and rubbed it between his palms. Dropped to one knee, itching hands flat against the floor, on the opposite side of the tear from the hakua.

"Our hands are the healers of zero..."

It was like trying to comb away mist. His head throbbed, caught in the vice of a concentration headache. Where his knee touched the floor ached, as if he were leaning on solid ice.

"Light must stay in light, and dark in dark..."

He gritted out more words, not sure if they were the right ones; he couldn't make them out past the blood drumming in his ears. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea-

His ears popped. Dazed, Akira blinked, and worked his jaw to make sure he could hear again. _It's gone_.

The hakua was still circling the spot where the world had torn, as if the reptilian creature couldn't believe the tear was closed. Hissed, and shook itself, turning-

Expressionless blue eyes met his.

 _It won't attack_ , Akira told himself. _There's no tear, hakua won't go wild unless the darkness is already dangerously strong_ -

It sniffed him, long and deep as a lion drawing in the scent of blood.

" _Shin."_

Turned, and faded away like mist.

Akira pulled his aching body off the floor, absently gesturing his knives away. He wasn't a shin. How had the hakua even said that, anyway? It wasn't as if they had lips. It hadn't even been a sound; more like a concept, a glint of light on the scaffold of an idea. So maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him...

 _I had my knives out_.

His palms were still red. The scars itched, like he'd been handling something covered in ancient dust.

Shaken, Akira flexed his fingers, as if pulling steel from thin air.

Soothing cool spread with the sudden weight in his hand, the burning itch quenched by the heft of razored shadows.

 _Humans balance light and shadow_. Akira dismissed the knife again, noting how the itching had dimmed to a nagging ache. _Warding the house is going to be more annoying than I thought_.

Which brought to mind a certain shin's smile, and those idiotic words about _wanting_ to fight.

 _Grrr_. Akira picked up the box of salt, and took out a folded sketch of the house floorplan. He'd already worked out where he thought would be the best places to site the wards to protect the house with a minimum of disturbance. Better to check his plan one more time, so he could get it over with.

 _If this is going to be as annoying as lacquer rash, I only want to do it_ once.

* * *

In the morning haze, Sunnydale High smelled like smoke.

Akira ghosted into the library, heading back into the stacks. Technically the high school wouldn't be open for at least another half-hour. But given Shuichi's habits at his bar when the kokuchi were particularly bad- yes. There was the librarian, head bent over a book, half a breath from napping.

"You smell like smoke."

"Good lord!" Giles shot up straight in his chair, almost knocking a binder off his desk as he turned to glance at the offending teenager. "A bit of noise when you walk, perhaps?"

"Noise gets you caught by bald goblins," Akira smirked. "One of the buildings out back looks like it burned down. And you smell like smoke."

"The old science lab," Giles informed him. "Yes, it did. A bit nerve-wracking at the time, but I suppose it's all for the best-"

"What happened?"

...Damn it. He was supposed to be cold and aloof, Akira reminded himself. He wasn't supposed to care. Getting through the school year in one piece might depend on it.

 _But it's like seeing shin. Once you realize something so obscure exists - you can't stop seeing_.

Giles leaned back in his chair, one finger tapping idly on a page. "I suppose there's no harm in telling you..."

Akira listened. And blanched. And wondered how much Giles was glossing over with _I helped some students pull people out of the fire_. Amida save him, if he died he was going to haunt people until his body was safely cremated. "You mean those homicidal maniacs are going to be coming back to class like _nothing happened?_ "

"Hmm, not quite. Eric will be out a few days due to smoke inhalation-"

Akira upped the intensity of his glare.

Giles stopped. Polished his glasses a moment, and put them back on with an air of utter seriousness. "Whatever they may have attempted to do, neither Chris nor Eric has actually taken a life. What evidence we have of what they did do went up in smoke last night. The fire marshal has only found remnants that indicate someone tampered with bodies previously deceased; not, I should say, the most pressing of crimes to solve. And I assure you Miss Chase will not be pressing charges. While she is well aware of the malevolence of the Hellmouth, her family is not, and they will avoid anything so plebian and uncouth as pursuing a matter of mere criminal mischief. It would be, after all, one teenager's word against another's, and investigating would force the local police to look into matters their very instinct for survival warns them away from. Best to - er - let sleeping corpses lie."

"Unbelievable." Akira scrubbed knuckles across his forehead, as if he could wipe away the casual acceptance of evil that implied. "I'm going to have to sit next to these idiots in class and do nothing? No wonder Principal Snyder is out to expel anyone he can, if these are the people he _can't_."

Considering him, Giles pushed the chair back and stood. "What on earth makes you believe Snyder knows about any of this?"

 _You can see it in his eyes. You can see the darkness in his shadow_. "He knows," Akira said flatly. "He hates this place. He hates everyone here he deals with. He hates the fact that he can't throw me out because he hasn't caught me doing anything yet. When people hate that much..."

 _They're just asking for a parasite kokuchi to move in. All that darkness in their hearts - brrr_.

Like it or not, he'd better start patrolling Sunnydale for tears. There was no way he was going to put his life and sanity on the line to drag a kokuchi out of _Snyder_.

"He hates this school, but he's still here," Akira finished. "No one who hates everyone around them this much would stay in this town without a good reason."

"Indeed," Giles mused. "So why are you here?"

"Luck." Akira glanced over the librarian's desk, looking for any clues about what else might be roaming Sunnydale's night. "All of it bad..."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Some dialogue taken from "School Hard".

* * *

 _Judge, jury, and executioner_. Buffy tried not to squirm in her chair. She couldn't get how her two fellow victims could just sit there, as if Snyder's oily smirk didn't matter. Sheila might as well be waiting for her nails to dry, and Akira...

Even with the walls trying to close in around her, Buffy had to take a second look. Akira was _still_ , not calm.

"Tell me," Snyder mused, "who do you think is the most troublesome student in this school?"

 _Akira's not watching the troll_ , Buffy realized. _He's watching Snyder's_ shadow.

Which actually might make sense, given what Giles had told them about the Japanese transfer student's apparent previous close encounters with the creepy.

"There isn't a great deal known, so I can sum up," Giles had stated, opening one of his less-dusty tomes to an illustration of paired white and black creatures surrounded by spiky letters. "Light creatures and shadow creatures. Mares and moroi. In Japan, the few who know of them call them hakua and kokuchi. They're rarely seen by normal humans. Which is just as well, because they're normally quite harmless to us."

"Say what?" Xander had jabbed a finger at edged claws. "Somebody crossed the Terminator with a velociraptor, and it's harmless?"

"I sense a _but_ ," Buffy smirked.

"Indeed." Giles held up a hand to ward off incoming questions. "Bear in mind that I haven't made an in-depth study of these creatures, or the magic they use. But according to Master Shuichi Wagatsuma, a healing adept of my acquaintance-"

Healing adept? Oh man, she _so_ had to pin Giles down about that later-

"-light and shadow are two essential sides of the same reality. Every creature in the world we live in, the world of light, must have a shadow to support it. And every shadow in the other world must have something of light to serve as a counterpart - to 'cast' it, as it were," Giles stated. "Light and shadow are forever entwined, yet meant to be forever separate, barred from each other by a thin membrane of reality."

"Ooo yeah," Buffy sighed. "Definitely a _but_."

"Meant to be. You mean, they aren't always?" Willow glanced at the image nervously.

"Apparently not," Giles admitted. "According to Wagatsuma, the evening hours between about 10 PM to 3 AM tend to be times the membrane is weak, and may tear. Something to do with the natural flow of earth's magnetic field, he believes." He gestured toward the open tome. "When a tear occurs, so long as it is small, the kokuchi and hakua gather on either side of it and mend the damage."

Buffy nodded, resigned. "And when it's not small?"

"Then things can become rather sticky," Giles had said dryly. "Some kokuchi will attack humans directly. Others will possess them, and drive them into acting out their darkest desires."

"So." Xander had clapped his hands together. "We'll know one gets Snyder when he tries to burn down the school with us in it."

Giles hadn't laughed. And remembering that now made Buffy glance at Snyder's shadow herself, just in case.

Nope, just Snyder-shadow. If Giles was right about Wagatsuma's theory, and people had to have shadows to exist - um. She almost kind of had to feel sorry for it, being stuck to a troll.

"Well, it's quite a match between you three." Snyder's tone dripped satisfaction, as his fingers tapped on opened folders. "On the one hand, two of you have never stabbed a horticulture teacher with a trowel."

"I didn't stab anyone with a trowel." Sheila eyed her nails. "They were pruning shears."

Snyder snorted. "On the other hand, Sheila has never burned down a school building."

"W-well, that was never proven," Buffy got out before she could think twice. "The Fire Marshal said it could have been mice..."

Wait a minute. _Sheila_ hadn't burned down school buildings? Then, that meant Akira-

"Mice," Snyder said, deadpan. Eyed Akira. "I suppose they were _Japanese_ mice."

"Mice have all kinds of unsavory habits," Akira said levelly. "That's why I like cats."

"So you told the officers, after you assaulted three members of the swim team for _allegedly_ trying to abuse an animal." Snyder glared at the lone boy under his thumb. "As if our dedicated student athletes would ever behave like the hooligans you three are."

"And yet the officer noticed I was the only one without scratches." Akira leaned back in his chair, cool and casual.

 _Damn it!_ Buffy tried to catch his gaze. _This is no time for quipping!_

"Only a few weeks, and you've managed to tie these two in the class-cutting and fight-starting events," Snyder said dryly. He looked over all three of them again. "You're all neck and neck. It's exciting."

Sheila glanced up from her nails. "What does the winner get?"

"Expelled."

Buffy sucked in a breath, as if she'd been punched in the gut. He couldn't do that. Could he?

"Thursday is Parent-Teacher night," Snyder said with dark relish. "Your parents, assuming you have any-"

Oh man, she could see that hit a nerve with Akira. His knuckles went pale on the chair edge, and gray eyes were as hard as Giles picking up a mace.

"-will meet your teachers, assuming you have any left." Snyder's nose twitched. "You three are going to be in charge of this event. You have three days to prepare refreshments, make banners, and transform the school lounge into a habitable place for adults. This will incur my goodwill."

From the way Akira's lips thinned, Buffy would have bet Twinkies that they shared the same thought. _What goodwill?_

"Are we clear?"

"I'm clear," Buffy said swiftly. Looked at the others. "Don't you feel clear?"

Sheila stared back, bored. "Hai," Akira said, short and clipped.

Snyder's eyes narrowed. "English, Nikaidou."

"Yes," Akira bit out. "You are clear."

"We're very clear," Buffy said firmly.

Crystal clear. The fate of her continued school career and her mother's hopes that she would _behave_ and graduate high school like a normal kid, all hinged on her, a girl who stabbed teachers with shears, and a guy who still gave her the wiggins every time they were in the same room.

 _Cheer up_ , Buffy told herself firmly. _It can't get worse_.

* * *

"I was wrong," Buffy muttered under her breath, as the two of them stood on the school sidewalk and watched Sheila prance off to deep-throat a longhaired blond. "It can get worse."

Akira stared after his fellow miscreant with the kind of sinking feeling he hadn't had since Kengo had demanded to be part of their fight against the kokuchi. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two teenagers who seemed to be Buffy's friends approaching. Warily. Well, fine; they all had a lot more to worry about than whether he wanted to play nice with the school's computer wallflower and the ultimate non-jock. "We're in trouble."

Xander crossed his arms, trying to look nonchalant. "What's this _we_ , paleface?"

Dark hair, alert dark eyes; didn't move like he'd been trained to fight, Akira judged, but he at least had a good sense of balance. A fight with him would probably take more than one punch, but he was likely to swing wild-

Akira narrowed his eyes a moment, and took a deliberate breath. _I do not want to fight. Hear that, Shirogane?_ "The principal is counting on one of us to screw up. Or all of us. So yes, it's _we_. At least until this Parent-Teacher night is over."

"Not to rain on the parade of bonding in the face of trolldom, but why do you care?" Buffy said bluntly. "Like you said. One of us. Or all of us. Or maybe just _two_ of us."

"Buffy!" Willow almost wrung her hands, face stricken and bewildered as Shirogane finally realizing he'd made one innuendo too many.

"Heh. Who says I do care?" Akira shrugged, glancing past them to sweep the shadows for anything twitching where it shouldn't be. If a tear was bad enough, kokuchi didn't care about daylight. "My mother probably won't even show up." He looked into green eyes, and wondered why they made hairs prickle on the back of his neck. Aya was a vicious fighter, but even when she pulled her Kuresame, the head of the discipline committee had never made him feel like there was something supernatural _right there_.

But even a kokuchi-possessed person was still a _person_ in there, so Akira told his nerves to suck it up and deal. He knew what he'd seen in Snyder's office.

"Snyder will throw me out," Akira said casually. "Or he won't. I don't care." He shifted his weight back, noticing how Willow let out her breath in a silent _whew_ as the incipient fight dissolved. "But you care. That means your parents still worry about you. No one should throw that away."

 _Like I did_.

No, not fair. For him, throwing it away had never been an option. Half the time he'd been dodging kokuchi, his mother had been jetting to high-rise penthouses and meetings at company levels so rarified, the average janitor got nosebleeds. He didn't have to _try_ to keep her clueless.

 _Buffy was heading into the library when I went out. And Giles said students helped him_.

And the way Willow and Xander stood, angled so their lines of sight at least partially covered Buffy's blind spots - Akira thought he might have a good guess who those students were.

So here he was in yet another school turned supernatural ground zero, with a classmate trying to keep Evil from taking over the world and still be an average high school student, while parents gave her disappointed looks and a goblin of a principal was rubbing his hands just _waiting_ to expel her. Ouch. At least he'd never really wanted to be normal.

 _Heh. So instead of being a shin almost turned into the rei King, I get headaches and the chance to dodge fangs. I guess it's close enough to weird_.

Though there was a more serious threat than vampires here. If he did pitch in and help Buffy survive this, he'd be threatening his newly-made reputation as an aloof loner. In a school where mob violence wouldn't just include the average stone-brained jock and malicious bully, but body-snatching mad scientists and who knew what else. All of whom probably had very personal grudges against a girl who'd helped stop them.

... _Damn it_.

Shirogane was wrong. He had to be. Akira didn't _want_ to fight.

But Buffy had helped save someone's life the other night, and that... that deserved more from him than just a shrug and _not my problem._

 _I don't want to fight. Doesn't mean I won't_.

Deliberately meeting green eyes, Akira smirked. "Snyder's a goblin. Don't you want to see his face when he realizes we beat him? It should be worth every minute of the work." He swept a glance over all three of them again, and tilted his head. "Lunch. Banners, and we talk about refreshments, you said?"

* * *

"Okay, that's it. I'm putting a collar with a little bell on that guy." Xander folded his arms, as if the California night had spawned a chill breeze with Angel's disappearance. "Maybe on both of them. Japanese guy's already got the collar."

Buffy tugged her gaze away from the library doors, wishing she could tug back her heart with it. Seriously, if Angel had only planned to show up for a minute of enigmatic name-dropping, couldn't he have done it at the Bronze instead? They could have danced. Maybe. Or had coffee.

"Akira has a name," Willow protested.

"And Name-guy gives Buffy a wiggins," Xander shrugged. "Wills, he showed up _on time_ to do slave labor for Snyder. No human guy does that. We have to go with the wiggins."

"Wiggins?" Ms. Calendar raised dark eyebrows, and gave Giles a surprised look. "Okay, what don't I know about our new transfer student? Besides the fact that he's managed not to break any computers yet and my runes say he's wearing a pretty unusual protective amulet."

"An amulet?" Giles started. "In truth, I should say that doesn't surprise me. Wagatsuma is a responsible healer. If anyone under his care was still less than well when they had to leave him behind, he'd certainly take measures to see that his patient was protected."

Protective amulets. Oh, peachy. "Is this going to be another of those doesn't work for the Slayer, might work for everybody else things?" Buffy put in. Nicely. She was trying for nicely, anyway. Maybe she could get points for effort?

"No, probably not." Ms. Calendar shrugged, a half-smile on her face. "Making amulets that work besides just a psychological placebo effect is a pretty skilled subset of magical crafting. A good amulet has to resonate with the maker and the user. Your Watcher would probably have more luck writing abracadabras-"

Giles almost winced. "Please, must you?"

"Acrostic diminishing charms?" The technopagan's smile was cat-snarfed-the-cream. "Honestly, if I were you, I'd try an abecedarius. You have to go with your strengths. And a poem would fit everyone here a lot better than the mathemagical concept of weakening a malevolent force by whittling away at its name."

Buffy traded a look with Xander. _We're going to hate asking, aren't we?_

 _Yep_ , Xander's wince agreed. "What's an ABC... whatever?"

"Abecedarius," Giles rolled out, with the confidence of a guy who ate demon names for breakfast with a spot of tea on the side. "A rather old-fashioned form of poem. You can find it in some of the Psalms in the original Hebrew. Simply put, each line of the poem begins with a letter of the alphabet, in order."

"And this is magic," Buffy said skeptically.

"Well, maybe?" Willow was bouncing on her toes, like this was some of the best math ever. "These days everybody thinks you can describe the world with enough numbers. Only back a few centuries, not so much with the numbers. Everything was words. And words are all letters. So if you can get all the letters in - bam! You've got something for everything... or maybe I'm totally wrong..."

"Not at all." Giles brightened, giving her an appreciative nod. "There are various other aspects to the theory behind an abecedarius charm, but that is essentially it. To name a thing is to have power over it; and if your charm potentially contains the name of what seeks to harm you, it may be weakened." He cleared his throat, and fiddled with one ear of his glasses. "Unfortunately, it does take some measure of poetic skill to craft an effective charm. And as a poet - well, I fear I'm an effective bricklayer."

"I can probably whip up something herb and earth based," Ms. Calendar winked at him. "It won't have a lot of oomph, but it's the best I can do. Whoever gave Akira what he's got, knows him better than any of us do and has access to a lot more magic than I can get without a full circle online." She gave Giles a stare.

Buffy tried not to bristle. _My Watcher, I'm the one who gets to poke him for not saying stuff_. "Wagatsuma's like a doctor, right? Doesn't that mean there's some kind of healer-patient privilege, or something?"

"I would certainly treat it as such," Giles said gravely. "Nevertheless," he glanced at the technopagan, "you are correct in implying that whoever had the power to craft such an amulet likely was not entirely human. Master Wagatsuma has mentioned in the past that he is more skilled at healing some supernatural creatures than he is humans, so it's very likely one of them owed him a favor. To be honest, that skill is why I make certain I always have his current number." He nodded at Buffy. "He resides in Japan, which puts him several hours away at best... but if by some mischance you were gravely injured and we had those hours, I would call him. He has far more experience than any mundane physician in what to treat, and what to leave alone, when his patient has enhanced healing."

Something in her chest seemed to seize up at that. She'd died - actually, really _died_ \- at the Master's hands. Just for a minute. But she'd been gone, and Xander had brought her back, and she really didn't want to think about getting hurt that badly again. Just because Spike believed he could do it didn't mean he was right. She'd beaten _the Master_. Spike was just another slayee in the making, right?

"Whoa, whoa." Xander did a time-out T with his hands. "There's someone out there who fixes the creepies and the crawlies? Somebody human? And you _trust_ him?"

"That may sound hard to believe, Xander, but you must remember Sunnydale is a Hellmouth." Giles pointed down at the floor. "The arcane energies it emits draws the evil, the demonic, and the insane. Most harmless or neutral creatures, and there are in fact quite a few of those, would avoid Sunnydale like the plague. I've focused on teaching you about the predators, the parasites. Possibly I should have taught you about the others, but damn it all, I've been trying to keep you alive!"

Xander swayed back, alarmed. Willow gulped. Even Ms. Calendar looked taken aback.

Buffy grabbed that mental image of the leering master vampire and jammed it into a bunny-suit. There. No more Mr. Nightmares for a while. "This Master Wagatsuma really means a lot to you."

Giles took off his glasses and looked down, light glinting off lenses as he gave them an almost-casual shrug. "When I was much younger, and in a bit of a supernatural sticky wicket, Shuichi was one of those who helped pull me out. If it weren't for people like him making alliances with those supernatural creatures who do not hate humans, the world would be a far darker place. Knowing he's out there lets me sleep some nights." He sighed. "Though not tonight. I'm not familiar with any recorded vampire known as Spike, but if Angel knows him that may at least help us narrow our search. Xander, could you hand me volume ten?"

 _And we're being avoidy about the whole shadow-light mess again_ , Buffy reflected. Which on the one hand _argh_ , she wanted answers _now_ -

On the other, wanna-be Big Bad out to slaughter people on Saturday night, and Snyder-disaster to avoid on Thursday. They were kind of booked.

 _Akira said his mom won't even show. Will he?_

She kind of hoped yes. She needed help on the lounge, still.

And the look on Xander's face would be _priceless_.


	4. Chapter 4

"I thought you said your mom wouldn't show!" Buffy muttered, fingers clenching as if they wanted to go around Akira's throat. Probably from sheer panic; for the past few hours, it'd taken everything Akira, Willow, and Buffy could do to keep Joyce Summers away from all of Buffy's teachers, and losing one distraction might bring the whole plan crashing down.

For his part Akira was trying not to stare, aghast, at the prim and proper blue-suited Japanese lawyer who'd just entered the student lounge. Despite the late hour, she looked as neatly turned out as she would for a board meeting first thing in the morning. Snyder would love it. "I thought she wouldn't!"

 _This is going to be a very long night_.

It'd already been a long enough day. Classes, putting up banners, making sushi to go with Buffy's vegetable tray. Not to mention enduring the stares from Buffy's friends and Cordelia when he'd asked if anyone had seen Sheila. And then he'd noticed the whittling. "Stakes?" Ah, right. "Vampires? How can I help?"

Cordelia had done a double-take. "The Japanese dweeb knows?"

Oh. One of _those_. "You might want to step up your insults," Akira said dryly. "The discipline committee at my last school could actually manage _subtle_." He paused, and gave her a measuring look. "And trust me, my grades don't qualify for dweeb. 'Hooligan' is more accurate."

"Cordelia zinged on Valley slang by an out-of-towner," Xander said, almost under his breath, as Willow looked torn between delighted and appalled. "I want a picture. Do we have a picture?"

"Just help me get my mom past Snyder tonight," Buffy had sighed. "I can handle the big bad vampire as long as I'm not expelled."

 _And now it looks like_ I'll _get expelled_ , Akira thought now, heart sinking. Snyder had just gotten back from talking to Buffy's mother - they'd won with the teachers, but after nearly three hours all of their efforts at distracting the evil principal had failed - and now he was homing in on Akira's mother like a heat-seeking missile. _At least the food was good. Though I wonder why Willow is so upset about the lemonade_ -

Ulp. Now Buffy's mother was heading their way, eyes narrowed, while Snyder drew his mother aside near the back wall of the lounge, his face the picture of sober adult concern.

 _Is he actually rubbing his hands?_ Akira would have groaned, if this weren't such a catastrophe. _He looks like a villain out of a preschool manga. Tell me Mom's not going to fall for that_.

"In the car," Mrs. Summers said, to a girl who'd probably much rather be facing vampires. "Now."

 _Sorry_ , Akira thought, heading for the lounge window as Buffy and Willow trudged after Mrs. Summers. _I did what I could. Now I have a principal to face down_ -

There was a shadow on the window. Almost... distorted.

 _Oh no. This is a_ school, _not a home. It probably doesn't have a threshold!_ "Buffy! Vamp-"

Glass shattered.

Later he'd blame adrenaline and the memory of Shirogane's smile. Then, he didn't have time to think.

 _Glass shattering equals kokuchi attack, get the hell_ away _from the civilians you stupid young shin, Homurabi's Children always target you first_ -

Akira was out the window and into the night before he could register that the swarm of fanged bodies was heading past him. Into the school. Toward the screams.

 _What? Why?_

A jean-jacketed straggler caught sight of him as he tumbled into the shadows. Its face shifted, wrinkled and inhuman, fangs sprouting like bamboo shoots. "Hey, takeout!"

Akira closed his fingers on will and shadow.

 _Not a shin. Not as fast, not as strong, make this count!_

Heavyset as a linebacker, the vampire rushed him.

 _Longer reach. Gauge it, duck_ -

Akira stepped right and swept low, hair brushing against straining denim, left blade carving deep into undead flesh. The ribs caught on the knife, yanked him sideways.

 _Perfect_.

Turning with the momentum, Akira slammed his right blade between ribs from behind, angling up and through.

Heart pierced, the vampire exploded.

 _Dissolves. Like a kokuchi_. Akira spat out ash as he landed. _Only dustier_.

Which was probably the only reason he was in a crouch, blood drumming in his ears, instead of flat on his face. He was used to bodies that resisted - and then didn't.

 _One down. There were a lot more. Where?_

Stupid question. Just listen for the screams.

* * *

"Where is my son?"

 _Well, at least she's not a screamer_ , Buffy thought irreverently, keeping an eye on the science room door as Snyder and some other poor student's father shoved a storage cabinet in front of it. "He got out through the window. I can't blame him."

She really couldn't, even if Xander and Willow might never understand. Anyone moving as fast as Akira had flipped up and out of shattered glass had been running on _reflex_ , not thinking. And if that reflex took one more person she had to protect away from the fangs, all the better.

"Who are those people?" the man who'd manhandled the cabinet demanded. "What do they want?"

"I didn't get much of a look," Joyce said, shocked, "but is something wrong with their faces? I-"

"It does not matter," Mrs. Nikaidou said firmly. "We should remain calm. My son will find a phone. The police will be here shortly."

"The police-" Snyder cut himself off.

Buffy felt a chill. _How about that? Akira's right. He_ does _know something_.

And if he knew something about the creepy-crawlies around Sunnydale, and wasn't telling people, and was actually trying to _stop_ her and Giles when they did something about it - that bumped him over from petty to evil.

"We can't wait for the police!" Snyder snapped, grabbing a desk. "It's a gang on PCP! They could break their own bones bashing the door down and never feel it. We've got to get out of here before they find us!"

 _Gang on PCP, my cute butt!_ "You can't go outside! They'll kill you!" Which, honestly, Buffy wouldn't cry over, but most scared people moved in groups. Xander, Willow, even Cordelia - they had the guts to buck the crowd and stay alive. But if Snyder went out the window it was even odds her mom and Akira's would be right behind him. And that _would_ get them killed.

 _Akira's fast, and he surprised them_ , Buffy thought _. I'd just bet he's still alive. But Mom, the other parents - they aren't anywhere near that fast. And Spike knows we headed this way_.

Time to do something to even the odds.

* * *

 _Climbing roofs was a lot easier as a shin_.

Akira shook the stray thought off, poking at the padlock on the library skylight. Unlike the school's doors, this was actually a serious lock. Though maybe he could pick it anyway...

 _Get real. Kou might pick it. You? Stick to what you know_.

Shadow-blade met steel, with a sound like tearing foil off green tea chocolates.

Akira pried open one side of the skylight, trying not to rouse any screech of hinges on rust. It opened easier than he'd expected; someone must have come through here in the past few months. _Now if only there's still some help in here_...

"-I am responsible for her," Giles' voice was low, but heartfelt. "And I have to go!"

"Not that way!" Akira hissed, as the librarian moved to pull at his makeshift barricade. Gripping the edges of the skylight, he flipped down and in.

 _Ow._ His ankles were definitely not amused. _Not fun_.

"Akira?"

"Ms. Calendar." Akira surreptitiously flexed his fingers, making sure the knives were out of sight. "Giles." The computer teacher wasn't visibly armed, but the librarian had an ax. Good. "There are vampires on guard all around the school. We might get past them if we move fast, but the parents..." _Mom. I left her. I didn't mean to-!_

Something cracked above.

Buffy dropping out of the ceiling was one of the least surprising things he'd seen all night.

"Buffy!" Relief spread across the Watcher's face as he lowered the ax. "You're all right."

"Yeah, pretty much-" Buffy blinked at Akira. "I thought you ran for it!"

"I tried," Akira said dryly. "There's more than a dozen vampires keeping watch all around the school; that doesn't even count the ones inside." He was not going to shiver. California was warmer than Tokyo, damn it. "I went for the roof. Less watchers. How many vampires are there in this town?"

"Slay all you want, they'll make more," Buffy quipped. "Well, you're here. Want to chip in?"

She had to ask? "My mom's out there," Akira bit out.

"So's mine. And you bailed on both of them." Green eyes... weren't quite angry. Upset. Definitely not happy. But not _angry_.

Somehow, that hurt worse.

Akira swallowed. "...I thought they'd follow me."

"What?" Ms. Calendar burst out. "Why? How did you get involved with vampires-"

"Jenny." Giles stood straight. "Why?"

"The glass blew out." Fear was a lump in Akira's throat; it felt like he had to pry every word past it. "It was like a kokuchi attack. They don't just shred anyone. They head for people who can see them, first." His hand waved near his chest; closed into a white-knuckled fist. _Focus_. He looked at Buffy. "My mom-"

"She's locked in the science room across the hall, with Snyder, my mom, and three others," Buffy said swiftly, grabbing one of her friends' bags from the table. "Willow and Cordelia ran the other way, I don't know... where's Xander?"

"He got out through the stacks," the Watcher said briskly, as Ms. Calendar helped Buffy load her bag with stakes and crosses. Akira took a breath, and made sure he filched one of each before they were gone. "He's gone to get a... mutual ally."

 _So there are more secrets_ , Akira reflected. _Why am I not surprised?_ "The lab won't be safe long. It has windows."

Buffy hefted the bag, as if imagining smashing it right into a vampire's fangs. "If you've got suggestions, I'm with the listening. Just make it fast. Spike wants to use leg bones as drumsticks, and there is no _way_ he gets to audition for Dingoes Ate My Baby."

Akira fished out a box of exorcising salt, and pointed to the ceiling. "I don't know how well this works on vampires yet. They're outside the lab? Let's do an _experiment_."

* * *

Joyce watched Snyder pace, and had to forcibly squash the image of a trapped Chihuahua. "So you're Akira's mother? Buffy's mentioned him a few times." Mostly in the context of incidents Mrs. Akane Nikaidou probably didn't want to hear about again. Ouch. "She says he's... kind to animals." Not that Joyce was in favor of fighting, but honestly. Teenage boys hurting innocent animals? People like that needed to be stopped.

"He has been starting fights again," the Japanese woman said flatly. "I hoped we had left that in Tokyo." Her lips thinned. "He knew very inappropriate people in Tokyo." Black eyes, so unlike Akira's gray, fixed her with a firm look. "But he will bring help."

Joyce almost smiled in relief. Akira might be a troublemaker who knew _inappropriate people_ , whatever that meant, but Akane believed her son would do what was right.

 _Like Buffy does. Eventually. After trying everything else first_ , Joyce thought wryly. "Has he mentioned Buffy, or her friends?"

"He said they were _heroic_." Akane's tone soured on the word. "Children running in to rescue a fool from the fire he himself set are not heroic. That is reckless. And inappropriate."

 _Buffy rescued someone from a fire?_ Joyce sucked in a sharp breath, thinking of a night she'd washed smoke out of her daughter's clothes. _She never said anything about that!_

Probably because it was reckless and inappropriate, Joyce admitted to herself. She would have grounded Buffy for weeks. And her little girl valued evenings at the Bronze with her friends over any public words about being brave. "Well, maybe we could both talk to them. I know the Sunnydale Fire Department teaches CPR courses. I bet thinking about having to put their lips on one of us old fogeys in an emergency would get them to cut back on heroics _real_ quick."

"Hmm." Akane nodded, as if the idea was actually interesting. "It is possible. And desirable. I want no more _heroes_ in my family. I-" She cut herself off, throat working on unspoken words.

Ooof. "What do you think Mr. Nikaidou will think-"

"My husband is dead." Black eyes burned. "The Nikaidou family needs no more heroes." She scowled at the man heading for the lab window. "And none of us need fools!"

"Second that," Joyce muttered, stepping up next to Akane to present a united front against male idiocy.

 _Snyder_ idiocy, though, looked like it was going to be a lot harder to crack.

* * *

 _Tricky, tricky little Slayer_ , Spike thought, hefting his metal pole as he listened for furtive crawling in the ceiling. Girl knew enough to use cover against numbers. Shouldn't have surprised him, the blonde bint had lasted this long on a Hellmouth, but it did. Slayers lived to kill. Give them a vamp in easy stabbing range, most couldn't resist taking a shot. But this one was. Heh. Maybe the Annoying One wasn't quite as ham-fisted as he thought...

Spike stopped. Tilted his head. Odd. For a moment he thought he'd heard two bodies crawling... _there_.

Grinning, he stabbed the ceiling.

 _Missed, sod it all_ , Spike grumbled to himself as dust pattered down. He yanked out the pole for another try, not bothering to blink, even as thicker dust whooshed down on the vamp minion who'd followed his lead. Bloody school was probably a fire hazard waiting to happen. He'd be doing the town a favor by tossing a lighter and letting the whole place go up...

Why did he smell salt?

Behind him, the minion made a strangled noise. Which was odd as all hells, vamps not needing to breathe and all, and why did he think he'd heard something like that before-

The minion wailed, pole falling with a clatter as he raked at his face with blistering fingers.

For a moment Spike stared, open-mouthed. He hadn't seen that since-

 _China. Boxer Rebellion. Exorcizing salt!_

Spike yanked the minion over to a water fountain, making sure to splash himself first. That prickle on his skin might just be his imagination. Or not.

The minion sobbed as he splashed water over blistered skin, over and over. "What- what is it, it burns!"

"Oh, suck it up," Spike growled, disgusted. "It won't kill you, you twat. No more than a splash of holy water."

"Holy water-!"

"You're a _demon!_ Toughen up." Spike smirked, fangs glinting. "Slayer's in the ceiling. And she's got _nasty_ tricks."

* * *

 _You better be as good at sneaking as you say you are, Akira_.

Then Buffy wasn't thinking, as the world snapped into the crystal focus of ceiling breaking, vamp with ax below, _stake_.

Dust.

 _Yowza_. Buffy looked through the hole in the lab door, trying not to shudder. _Close one_.

When she got out of here, she owed Akira a thank-you. Making sushi for Snyder's sneers was one thing. Offering to play salty bait so she could sneak everybody else out? Above and beyond.

"Buffy! Are you okay?"

 _I'm not the one who almost had Vampire Ax on my throat_. "Fine, Mom," she said in a rush. "But Akira's distracting some of the bad guys, so we need to go. Just as soon as I take care of something. Hang on one more minute; I'll be right back."

 _One more guard. Then we can get people out through the stacks_ -

Quiet noises behind her were never of the good. "Sheila!"

"Sorry I'm late," her should-have-been partner in punch-making shrugged. "There's some really weird guys outside."

 _Weird guys._

" _There's more than a dozen vampires keeping watch all around the school."_

And nobody had seen Sheila all day.

Wow. She hadn't thought there was any adrenaline left to dump into her system.

"Yeah, I know." Buffy kept her voice low, looking down the corridor as if the vampire guard was the only thing on her mind. "They're trying to kill us."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sheila pick up the ax. "This should be fun."

 _Not so much_ , Buffy thought bleakly, skin between her shoulderblades itching as she headed down the hall toward the obvious vampire. _But at least I know it's coming_.

More than that. Now she knew Spike wasn't just some ugly torture-maim-bloodsucking Master wannabe. He was smart. Smart enough to hit her without warning, fight her when she was hampered by protecting civilians, and send in a mole. Or Renfield. Or whatever people called it when a master vamp pulled a Jesse and turned someone she'd risk her life to save.

She was going to cry into her ice cream later, she just knew it.

 _Slayage first. Cry later_. "Stay behind me," Buffy whispered.

 _Here we go_.

* * *

Akira held himself still in the ceiling, braced on the most solid bits of metal slat he could find, and tried not to sneeze. Spike had ears like a bat, and those poles had come way too close for comfort.

But he'd heard the metal pole clatter to the floor moments ago, and now Spike was... laughing with someone? This couldn't be good.

 _Argh. Too much English_. And he couldn't spare a hand to rub at the headache. All he could make out were bits like _Slayer_ and _rice_. Which made no sense, unless someone had seen him stake the casserole-vamp after all-

"I knew you were lying."

 _Xander?_

"Undead liar guy."

... _This is going to hurt_.

Akira kicked out the tile, and jumped into chaos.

* * *

 _As plans go? This sucks!_

One minute Xander had been struggling against all of Angel's undead strength, because if this was a plan that'd make it more convincing. And if it wasn't, getting out of here was... evidently not happening, and if he lived through this he had to ask Giles how strong Slayers really were. Buffy could get out of this-

Then he was twisting loose, as half the ceiling and a Slayer-load of cranky came down on Angel's head.

Hearing Deadboy yelp made Xander's whole night.

...And then the night got depressing again, as the bleeding vampire tore his attacker off and flung him against the wall-

Xander had never seen anybody twist that fast. Except Buffy.

Brown hair. Black collar. A silver cross dangling as an earring. Definitely _not_ Buffy.

Akira still hit the wall. But with his back, not his head. And if his knees were shaking, his hands were full of steel.

 _Um_. Xander got to his feet, trying to gauge if it was better to run for Akira or the door. _If it's not wood, it doesn't really work on vamps_ -

Apparently one of Spike's minions thought the same thing, and grabbed for the staggering teen.

A silver flash, and grabbing claws flew off, poofing into ash.

You could have heard a detention slip drop.

"Oh, tonight we get the bonus round." Spike dusted off his hands, grinning. "A Slayer, a _Hunter_..." He toed up the metal pole, flipping it up into the air to catch it with a snap that would have left the cheerleading squad green with envy. "And an Uncle Tom! _Get them!_ "

Xander threw a cross at the knot of vamps between Akira and the door, and bolted.

* * *

 _So the rumors were true_ , Spike thought bitterly, watching his minions surge out of the school after the three while he gauged the best moment to strike. _The Scourge of Europe, a turncoat. A bloody traitor to the blood. A mewling wanker helping the Slayer. It makes no sense!_

Well, if that was what gypsy curses could do, he'd steer clear of the bloody Rom. There was killing people because they were a challenge, and then there was sodding _stupid_.

What he couldn't figure was the Hunter in the midst of this mess. Exorcizing salt, some kind of enchanted blades, using cover; a fighting style that depended on hitting fast and hard and getting back out of range before an annoyed demon could tear your arms off. All the marks of a human who'd taken up arms against bigger monsters than he'd ever be.

Only two things wrong with that picture. First, Hunters tended to be older. Most humans couldn't muster the moxie for nightstalking without one hell of a loss burning in their guts, and teenagers just didn't have that much to lose. Second - this Hunter was working with a Slayer. That just ruddy well did not happen. Slayers were supernatural, as much as any hairy werewolf or wrinkly vampire. And Hunters were rightfully paranoid. One hint of a Slayer's supernatural strength or healing, and smart Hunters headed for the hills.

The not-so-smart ones? They tended to meet an angry Watcher.

 _Never underestimate a bloke in tweed. They favor crossbows_.

A Hunter not acting like an average Hunter, and a Slayer smarter than the average Slayer. For the first time since Prague, he had a real challenge on his hands...

A whisper of a footfall. Spike grinned. "Fe, fi, fo, fum. I smell the blood of a nice ripe..." He turned, and took in blonde hair, determination, and an ax. Sweet. "Girl."

After all, killing was one thing. Playing with their heads? Even better.

* * *

 _Bruised. They're just bruised_ , Akira told himself, as aching ribs protested every dodge and slash. _You've had worse_.

He had. But not recently. And shin healed faster than humans.

 _So you get to try out Shuichi's salve later. It'll hurt like hell. For now - fight!_

Xander was trying to keep the vampires off his back. He appreciated the effort. Really. But Xander had all Kengo's goofy what-is-this-thing-you-call-aim fighting style, without the unnatural strength and endurance to back it up. Which meant the vampires were picking him as the weaker target, meaning Akira had to keep whirling in circles to guard _Xander's_ back, and bruised ribs meant he was already short of breath, and-

A punch made it past his blades, landing hard on his kidney. The world flashed red.

 _Never had much endurance. Damn it_...

He couldn't breathe. The next fist would hit, and then there would be fangs-

Flesh thudded on flesh.

Nothing touched him.

Gasping, Akira tried to blink away spots. The vampires... were running?

All except one. Tall, dark-haired, one arm still trickling a bit of blood. The vampire grimaced, and stepped back so Xander was between them. "I'm with you guys."

"Angel is, kind of," Xander admitted. "Most of the time. Usually."

 _Great. One of those_. Akira said nothing, focusing on getting air back into his lungs. _Ow_.

"So where's a kid like you come up with enchanted blades?" Angel asked warily.

 _A kid, huh?_ "Must have won them from a pachinko machine," Akira shrugged. Tucked his hands behind his back and made the blades vanish, as if he'd sheathed them in unseen scabbards. The less a vampire knew about Shirogane's gifts, the better.

"Wait, wait - you brought those into school?" Xander paled. "You know what could happen if Snyder catches you with those?"

Akira blinked at him. Made a fist, and jabbed a thumb at a body sprawled under one of the school windows. _Someone's half-orphaned tonight. Damn it_.

"...Okay, no fair, point... Buffy!" Xander scrambled back into the school.

Akira glanced at Angel. Who was eyeing him right back.

"I'll hang around out here a while," the vampire said neutrally. "In case one of them comes back." Brooding eyes narrowed. "You heading in to help her, too?"

Akira snorted, and tried not to wince. "Buffy can take care of herself." Willow and Cordelia, though - they might need help.

 _If they're still alive_.

...Well. If they weren't, the least he could do was stake them first.

He took a shallow breath, and headed in.

* * *

 _In, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four_ , Cordelia chanted in her head, matching breath to the rhythm. Willow's idea. Maybe not any good if vampires really could hear earthworms gnawing through the dirt, but as long as Buffy or somebody was making noise out there, a meditating heartbeat might not sound so much like prey-

"Willow? Cordelia?"

Akira's voice. Or what sounded like Akira's voice. Cordelia glanced at Willow; saw the same fear reflected in the wallflower's eyes. Why Akira? Why not Buffy, or Xander, or even Ms. Calendar?

 _How fast can a human be turned?_

"Spike's gang left," that voice went on. "I'm going to be standing in the corridor, holding a cross, so you can tell it's me. Let's get out of here."

Okay, that sounded like a half-sane offer. Cordelia raised a brow at Willow.

Gulping, the redhead nodded.

 _I am_ so _out of here_. Braced for the worst, Cordelia opened the closet door, stepping out with a no-nonsense clack of heels. _Look out world, Queen C is on the prowl_.

A few yards away, a dusty, bruised Japanese teen held up a wooden cross, and waved. "Mind holding this?"

"No thanks. I have my own." Cordelia unsnapped her purse, flourishing the bit of silver in the air for all to see. "Willow?"

Shy and awkward, Rosenberg pulled a Star of David into view.

"Okay, so we're all of the non-fangy variety," Cordelia said briskly, shutting her purse again. "Where's Buffy? Rescuing people is supposed to be her thing."

"And where's Xander?" Willow said in a hurry. "Is he okay?"

"He's a little bruised. And distracted," Akira said wryly. "I think the cops just got here."

Cordelia snorted. "Like that's going to help." She gave the walking advertisement for Japanese punk rock a scathing look. "So why are you in here?"

Akira gave her just as sharp a look back as they started moving. "Because by now I have it scarred on my hands: you don't leave terrified people alone in the dark. That's just asking for them to get possessed. And then things get ugly."

Willow shivered. "Uglier than vampires?"

"I don't know." Gray eyes searched the shadows around them as they walked. "Sometimes you can save someone who's possessed."

Cordelia swallowed, and hoped no one else saw it. She didn't want to think about the monsters. She wasn't Buffy, or Giles, or Ms. Calendar; people mixed up in the weird the way more sane girls were mixed up in makeup and the perfect outfit. She definitely wasn't Xander or Willow, tagging along with Buffy because they _wanted_ to be there. She was just... stuck. The monsters were out there, and it was marginally safer to be whittling stakes and giving losers rides than burying her head in the sand and hoping the latest supernatural soul-muncher wouldn't decide she was the munchee.

 _So which one's Akira? Jumped in? Dragged in?_ Her eyes darkened, thinking of how brittle Buffy had been before the Slayer had smashed the Master's bones for good. _Or drowning?_

...Whatever. It wasn't like she cared. Really.

Squaring her shoulders, Cordelia dropped back a moment to glance at Willow. Who apparently meditated. Who'd been almost as shocked to find out _Cordelia_ , of all people, liked to have her head clear once in a while. Sheesh, you'd think people didn't believe cheerleading was actual, _highly skilled_ exercise. Did they think jumping up to the head of a pyramid was easy? "We shall never speak of this shared cultural experience again."

Willow blinked, then nodded decisively. "Done and done."

Akira was glancing over his shoulder at them, curious.

Cordelia sniffed, head held high. "Just keep walking, buster."

 _...That jerk better not be laughing_.

* * *

"My son!"

 _Don't touch the ribs, don't touch the ribs_... Akira angled his body carefully, so the most likely touches would avoid any injury bad enough to make him flinch. It helped that he knew he'd never get the kind of octopus glomp Mrs. Summers was giving Buffy.

 _Hard grip on the shoulders. Good. I can live with that_.

"I told you no more fighting!"

 _But not that_. Akira looked at his mother, trying not to see her fear. Because he'd been afraid, in a way he'd never had to be before. Kokuchi and now vampires had attacked him, even tried to kill him, too many times to count. But he'd never had something after his family before. "I saw the power go out in the school, and the first phone I found was out too." True enough, given it'd been the library phone. "I didn't know how far the outage went, and - there was a _body_." Well, there had been. Briefly. "I couldn't leave you and my classmates with people who were killers!"

Akane looked at the girls who'd followed him out onto the school lawn, both of whom evidently had no clue what the rapid Japanese being flung around meant. Though they could apparently get the emotions. Willow was almost biting her nails. Cordelia was deliberately examining the polish on hers, just a flicker of a glance edging his way from time to time.

His mother gave the girls another stare, then glanced at Xander hanging around the edges, the police chief talking to Snyder, and finally at Buffy and Joyce, who were close enough to Xander for Joyce to give him an encouraging smile. The other boy brightened, obviously perked up by whatever she'd said.

Akane sighed, and let go of her son. "I do not approve." She paused, as if the next words were made out of lead. "But it would not have been proper to leave your group in danger. They were assisting you with the lounge. You had an obligation."

Akira nodded, relieved-

"Do not take up obligations so casually!" Black eyes blazed at him. "Your father did. It killed him."

 _She must be upset_. Akira drew back, stunned. _She never mentions Dad_. "They never found a body."

"He swore to me, he would return if he could." Akane's jaw clenched. "He is dead. And I will not lose you as well."

Dad had said that? He'd never heard that before.

 _She's talking. Maybe I can get some answers about that night_ -

"Mrs. Nikaidou?" One of the police, speaking English. "We need to get your son's statement."

* * *

A/N: Since this is mostly the Buffy setting, this is a time when cell phones are still not common. "Uncle Tom" - as used in-canon in the episode, someone who betrays their own kind.

It's canon that Akira hates sweet things. He probably would have swigged a whole glass of Buffy's punch and never noticed a problem.


	5. Chapter 5

_Two parents and a student murdered, and school here picks up and goes on the next day_ , Akira thought bitterly, yanking down the last pieces of the banners Sheila had never gotten the chance to work on. They glimmered in the afternoon light from the broken lounge window, Buffy's glittery letters glinting like a sunbeam through clouds. _I hate this place_.

Even more, he hated the attitude Sunnydale forced on Buffy and the others. People were dead. It sucked. But all they could do was pick themselves up and study for the next test, waiting for the monsters to kill again.

 _It's wrong. All of this is wrong._

 _I have to do something_.

Shoving torn posterboard into a rubbish bin on top of some of the window glass, Akira swore under his breath. He'd told Shirogane he didn't want to fight. And he didn't.

 _But no school newspaper should have an obituary column_.

He was one guy. One sore, almost powerless guy. Shuichi's salves had worked a small measure of the same agonizing magic as the rei king's hands, so his ribs were intact, but that didn't change the basic fact that he was _human_. Not a shin. Not... whatever Buffy had to be. She'd taken on what Willow had called a master vampire and come out with nothing worse than scrapes and mussed hair. He'd tried to take on Angel, and...

 _Admit it. If he'd been just a little faster, he would have killed you_.

Damn it. What could he do?

 _Splorch_.

Akira blinked, peering at a whiteness moving above the floor where the vampires had gathered. _That's a much bigger hakua than the one in our kitchen_.

And there was a black beak poking through from the other side of the red-limned tear, as a kokuchi probed a possible exit into the world of light.

 _This, I can do something about._

 _...I hope_.

Rubbing salt across his fingertips, Akira crouched to flatten his palms on the floor. "Our hands are the healers of zero..."

It was a bigger tear. But maybe he'd gotten a better grip on how to patch the energies together, because the headache didn't seem any worse than last time-

"Buff, we almost died due to Snyder's little party." Xander's voice carried through the opening door. "I still say we should let the troll clean up his own decorations... whoa."

"Ohmigosh!" A whiffle of air, as if Willow had cupped her hands in front of her face. Akira didn't dare take his eyes off the tear to find out. "There's something glowing!"

Damn it. The hakua was rearing back and away from the tear, hissing. The black beak that had almost slipped out of sight stabbed forward.

 _This is going to get very ugly, very fast_.

"Everybody, calm down." Buffy's voice, level and watchful. "Giles said they wouldn't attack unless things got bad."

"They?" Xander gulped. "I'm guessing, not just a light."

"Nope." Buffy popped the _p_. "I see two... critters. Light and dark."

"If you don't want to see a lot more," Akira gritted out, hands tingling, crackles of blue and red skittering over his fingers, "close the door and _be quiet_."

...The door shut. He could still hear breathing behind him. _Damn_ it.

 _Hold the energies. Mend and bind them_. "Light must stay in light, and dark in dark..."

It wasn't the same as sealing the barrier as a shin. More of a stitch-and-patch, with thick bandages slapped on top. It would heal, in its own time.

But the tear was thinned to a fine line, and it would be hours until the boundaries weakened again. The hakua should have enough time to finish the job.

Slumping back on his heels, Akira brushed off itching salt. "Good luck with that."

Blue eyes slitted at him. _"Shin."_

 _Why do they keep calling me that?_

Scaly white skin shuddered, like flicking off a fly. The beak went back to work.

"Um." Xander gave Akira a look as he turned. "Glowy thing, still there."

"But the black one's gone." Buffy was in a relaxed ready pose, equally prepared to talk or unleash mayhem. "Hoping that's of the good." She crossed her arms, as if she could block the door all day. "We need to talk."

 _Another vampire. Another tear_. Akira grimaced. "Yes. We do."

* * *

 _Oh yeah, this isn't awkward_ , Buffy thought sarcastically, seating herself on a backwards chair as Xander and Willow both tried to grab chairs and keep an eye on Akira all at the same time. On his part, Akira was fiddling with one of the heavier dictionaries, doing his best to look like he wasn't about to toss it at the closest threat and bolt, really.

At least Giles looked mostly calm, bringing out his now much less dusty book on mares and moroi. "Now, the two of you say all you saw was a light?"

Xander nodded. Willow scrunched her face in a frown. "I thought I saw... something in the air, too," she admitted. "Red. Only it was too dark to be red. I think."

"Which fits descriptions of weak spots in the boundary between the realms," the Watcher mused. He cast a glance Buffy's way. "Yet you actually saw them."

"Book pic isn't sleek enough," Buffy said judiciously. "They move like a boa constrictor in a bad mood." She met gray eyes. "I thought you said Marys - Coke-guys - go after people who can see them."

"If the tear had been big enough to climb through, the kokuchi would have come after you." Akira flipped pages, mock-casual. "It should be closed soon. We got lucky."

"Did we?" Buffy leaned on her chair back, ready to move. "You didn't look like you were about to take it down. No offense."

"You have an ally who's a vampire." Akira snapped the dictionary shut. "Who knows Spike well enough that he tried to talk to a murderer. No offense."

"W-well, Angel's... complicated," Willow faltered.

"What's complicated about Deadboy?" Xander grumbled. "He likes to drool over-"

Giles cleared his throat.

And maybe miracles really did happen, because Xander glanced at her not-quite-friendly looking Watcher, and shut up.

"Until and unless your mother moves out of town, Akira, I suspect we'll be running into each other more often than not," Giles observed. "Like attracts like. One serious brush with the supernatural tends to leave one vulnerable to future encounters." He adjusted his glasses. "As I suspect Master Wagatsuma has already told you."

Reluctantly, Akira nodded.

"Given that is indeed the case, one of the few advantages humans have over demons is our ability to work together," Giles went on. "If Buffy is amenable, I propose a trade. Perhaps a question for a question?"

Buffy hid a grimace. _Nice try. But he's not going to go for it. Not with four of us and one of him. I sure wouldn't_.

Gray searched her gaze for a long, silent moment. "A trade," Akira said at last. "But not questions." He put the dictionary down. "A story for a story."

Yeah. That sounded fair. Not easy, but fair. "Once upon a time a Valley Princess who just wanted to be a cheerleader got told there was a skanky master vampire named Lothos who was out to make her a midnight snack," Buffy said. "Or worse. Lots of bad stuff happened, Lothos went down with a ruler to the heart, and just maybe there were smoking mice who burned down the gym to get rid of the rest of his nest. More nasty stuff happened," she was _so_ not going into the loony bin mess, "and the girl ended up on the mouth of Hell, and found out the monsters weren't going to stop until she dies. Because there's just one girl in all the world with the strength to fight the demons. One Slayer. The Hellmouth is a big all-Evil-can-eat, and they keep chowing down. Unless we stop them." She waved a hand, trying for casual. "So what's your story?"

Wide-eyed, Akira blinked. Looked down, and took a deep breath. "An ocean away from here, a bored high school student ran into a creepy stalker who didn't have a shadow."

Giles started. Buffy cocked an eyebrow at him. "I might have heard a few legends not in the usual records," he stated. "Do go on."

Akira gave him a look, then shrugged. "He told the stalker to get lost. _'It must be you'_ , hell no. The kid was bored, not stupid." He took a breath. "A few hours later he was stuck in the school after dark, trying to keep kokuchi from attacking two unconscious people who might be friends with just a bamboo sword." He glanced at Buffy. "For future reference, that only works until they can bite it in half. Which takes about... oh, one second after they get in close enough."

"Good to know," Buffy acknowledged. "So, steel?"

"Most of the time," Akira nodded. "You could probably punch them to death."

Ooo. Cool. Something that would actually die when she killed it.

"So. Take the creepy stalker's weapons and help," Akira went on, "or die without even knowing why."

"Kind of like the not dying option," Willow muttered.

Xander knuckle-bumped her shoulder. "Who doesn't?"

"Lots of nasty stuff happened," Akira said, deliberately echoing her light tone. "Getting information out of creepy stalker Shirogane is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. But eventually he puts enough pieces together. Two sides, light and shadow. Two kings for each side; rei, and shin. And for some reason, about seven years ago one of the shin kings, Homurabi, completely flipped out. He had his people murder one of the rei kings, Ryuuko, and tried to kill the other rei and shin kings. So they're in hiding. Which means tears are getting bigger, no one's left to fix them except a few lesser shin, rei, and some human adepts, and the shadow realm's threatening to crush the light side out of existence."

Giles grimaced. "I knew there was a problem some months ago, but Wagatsuma never said it was this bad..." He sighed. "Then again, he likely wouldn't. Light and shadow magic are vastly different from the witchcraft and sorcery the Council is familiar with. Getting them involved would only have made matters worse."

"Huh." Akira glanced at him, obviously noting _Council_ as something to ask about later. "For months, Homurabi just sent kokuchi and his lesser shin after anyone trying to mend the boundary. Some weeks ago he finally stepped in directly; because he _thought_ he'd found Ryuuko's reincarnation."

"Wait, what?" Xander sat up straight, vibrating like he was about to find some handy rocks and start pitching. "He went after a kid?"

"No." Akira's voice was flat. "He went after a teenager."

Xander did a double-take at the obvious. Counted on his fingers, and turned to Willow, who gave him an equally confused shrug.

"Shin and rei are immortal," Akira smirked. "They don't count human years very well."

"Okay, someone's life officially sucks," Buffy declared. "I've never had the vamps think someone _else_ was the Slayer."

Uh-oh. She saw a flinch. It was an itty-bitty tiny flinch, but it was a flinch.

 _Oh boy_. "Not all a mistake?" Buffy said, very quietly.

"Not... entirely." Gray eyes flicked to Giles. "You know kokuchi can possess people."

"Yes; it is one of the less pleasant attributes of the light and shadow creatures. Master Wagatsuma has quite a bit of experience with certain problems in that line, thankfully; it came in handy one time some years ago..." The Watcher trailed off, paling. "Oh, good lord."

Very not of the good. "Giles? Using words?" Buffy tried.

"A murdered rei king creates a very stubborn possessing spirit." Akira leaned back against one of the sturdier bookshelves, almost casual. "As far as Master Wagatsuma can tell, Ryuuko must have... gotten into my head... at least six years ago." His throat worked, one bitter swallow. "I might have worked it out before, except _someone_ decided it'd be better if I _didn't remember_ someone else taking over my body."

Okay, somebody deserved a pounding, Slayer-style. Buffy was having a hard time even imagining that level of goosebump-creepy. At least Amy had known her witch of a mother had taken over her body. "Did you kick his ass?"

"Homurabi kicked it." Akira's smile could have curdled her lemonade. "Rei and shin are opposites. The pair of them tried to kill each other. Only Ryuuko wasn't in a rei body, he was in _mine_. There was no way for him to summon all of a king's power. He hurt Homurabi, badly enough to make him retreat. But that burned out his magic." Fingers worked, clenching and unclenching on air. "And then, like the immortal bastard he is, his spirit left another dying body behind."

Ooookay. Now she knew why Akira set off her wiggins-meter. No one got that close to dead without it leaving a mark.

Giles winced; a soft huff of breath. "Master Wagatsuma said you'd been badly injured."

Stiffly, Akira nodded. "We all were. Ryuuko saved our lives. But if he hadn't been _in my head_ , none of us would have been there." He paused. Flinched. "No. Shirogane, Kou... they would have been." Gray eyes darkened. "I still hate him."

"Indeed," Giles nodded gravely. "This is unpleasant to ask, but - how likely is it that you could be possessed again?"

"I asked Master Wagatsuma that, too." Akira's voice didn't quite shake. "Almost impossible." A bitter laugh. "Ryuuko had me long enough, and did enough damage when he was burned out... Master calls it a massive spiritual allergic reaction. If anything else tries to possess me, the little bit of magic I do have will flare up and try to kill it." He paused. Cast a look over the whole room. "And if it's too strong for me to kill, and even the tiniest parasite kokuchi is probably too much for what I've got left..."

Buffy waited. Shot a glance at her friends before they could butt in. _No_.

"If I'm possessed, I'll die," Akira said quietly. "So you're going to find me patching tears a lot. I don't have a choice." He looked at her; sad, afraid, and just _tired_. "This is the second tear I've found near where vampires tried to kill people. If you're fighting vampires, tell me how I can help. It's my life on the line, too."

Now everybody was looking at her. And she didn't have an answer yet.

 _Stall_. "Giles. You said you knew about some of this?"

"I knew that rei and shin, Lightfolk and Shadowfolk who take a human form, do exist," the Watcher said judiciously. "I've never quite found it necessary to add them to any official records. At times, the Council can be quite prim about nonhumans who might pose a danger to humanity."

"No, really?" Xander rolled his eyes.

"But it sounds like, if the shin and rei weren't there at all, things could get... really bad," Willow got out.

"Precisely why I've never confirmed the rumors," Giles nodded. "I've seen Master Wagatsuma at work. It's startling how much more peaceful an area may become once the boundary is properly sealed, and shadow energy is no longer inflaming dark desires..." He trailed off, staring into the distance.

 _Watcher in thinky mode_ , Buffy deduced. _Incoming dear lord in five, four, three_ -

"Akira?" Giles was looking at him like an unexpected case of holy water in the middle of a vamp riot. "If you can seal the tears, that might be more help to us than even another fighter on the field."

"Marcie," Willow blurted out. "And Chris, and Amy's mother... and the hyena kids were possessed, though that was magic, so I don't know..."

"Whoa, whoa - build a bridge under that leap, guys," Buffy waved her hands. Though she thought she got the picture. At least the big pieces. "You're saying, even if the Coke-guys can't get through and possess somebody, this shadow energy can make them jump off the deep end anyway?"

"Sometimes." Akira's shoulders shifted against the shelf. "You'd be surprised how many people aren't as sane as they look."

"Hellmouth," Xander quipped, eyes shadowed. "Think we're pretty up on the crazy people look normal gig."

"But if there's less shadow energy leaking out... maybe people won't go as crazy?" Willow's eyes were bright.

"I don't know." Akira glanced at the floor, as if he could stare right through it to that warp in reality the Master had tried to rip open. "Someone I asked said the Hellmouth doesn't just have dark energy, it has _demonic_ energy. I can't fix that." He held a hand out flat, as if feeling something in the air. "It's like bailing with a thimble-"

Buffy took a quick breath, feeling some of her worry blow out with it. "You're in."

" _What?"_

Xander and Willow sounded surprised, but not in a bad way. Akira looked startled. And Giles... he hid it well, but she thought he was smiling.

"You're in because you _don't_ think you can fix it," Buffy stated, flat out. "Last guy I ended up fighting vampires with, we had to chase him off. He wanted to be Danger Guy, starting barfights just for the thrill. I don't need that. I don't _want_ that. I want careful people. Willow, Xander, even Cordelia - they know when to _run_. Like you did."

...That was a grin. Probably what most people called a scary grin. Maybe she would have called it that, if she hadn't seen it in a mirror. "Too bad you weren't born in Japan," Akira said wryly. "I could have dropped you on Kengo and Aya. And maybe those two would have learned something."

Erk. "Danger junkies?"

The groan was all the answer she needed. Akira rubbed his forehead with the heels of his hands, as if trying to press out a headache. "Aya went after her sensei, who was _cutting people apart_ , by herself. Kengo kept following me when I told him it was dangerous, and got himself possessed by _three_ kokuchi. I had to beat them out of him."

"Happens," Xander shrugged. "Buffy had to take me out with a desk once." He chuckled, just a little nervous. "I kind of thought I was a hyena. And did I mention if we ever have another school zoo trip, I'm going to be out sick that day? Just, you know, as a safety thing." Her best male bud gave her an awkward grin. "Oh, and Buff? Thanks. Not that I remember any of that, but way, way better to get flattened by the Slayer than... what happened to the other guys. Really."

Akira lowered his hands, eyes squinched in what Buffy recognized as _I know I'm going to hate asking_. "What happened to the other guys?"

Xander looked shifty. Willow whimpered. Giles cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should leave it at, last year Snyder was the _vice_ -principal-"

"They ate Principal Flutie." Buffy said flatly. "I don't know what happened to them after we got the spirits out. They got pulled out of school; rumor mill said they were in heavy therapy. I hope so. That... it wasn't them, it was evil hyenas using them." She had to stop and take a breath; thinking about it still made her queasy. "So yeah. Anything that keeps people from getting possessed? Is of the good. How do we do that, anyway? The chanting bit."

Akira looked like someone had smacked him with a desk. "You saw them. If you can see kokuchi, you can affect them... but it takes energy to seal the barrier, and I don't know how to tell if you have enough." He shook his head, eyes distant and thinking. "I have to call Shuichi."


	6. Chapter 6

Xander hit the mat on the library floor hard enough to drive air from his lungs, and decided maybe lying there wasn't such a bad idea. "Ow..."

Akira prowled the mat like a cranky tiger; Xander could feel it in how the rubbery fabric bounced under his head. "Did anyone ever teach you to fight?"

Xander raised a hand against the lead weight of gravity, and waved a sardonic finger. "We don't all get to grow up in the land of karate and ninja-babes."

"The closest I ever came to a _ninja-babe_ was Aya on the disciplinary committee, and she wanted to be a samurai." Akira stopped by his right side, not even breathing hard. "And if I know any karate, it's by accident. Kou taught me to brawl, and fight dirty. Lucky for me. Shin are a lot stronger than humans." He reached down.

Sighing, Xander gripped the offered hand, letting Akira help pull him up. _You're no slouch, either_.

Not that Akira was anywhere near Slayer levels of strength. Xander had never seen the other guy put a fist through anything, yet. But he could heft up a solid teenager to his feet with barely a yank, and as for actual fighting... argh. Giles had lent them weighted practice knives, _"So you can get it out of your system,"_ he'd muttered to Xander.

Which hadn't made a lick of sense at the time. Akira had slashed weird steel around like it was nothing. How hard could it be?

Half an hour later, wrists and arms feeling like blistered rubber, Xander had to admit the answer might be _very_. "How - ow. How the heck did you make fighting Angel look easy?"

"Easy?" Akira looked at him like he suspected Xander had landed on his head, not his back. "Did you miss the part where he threw me across the hall?"

On the sidelines with a weird Japanese text and a first-aid kit, Giles smothered a chuckle. At least, Xander hoped it was a chuckle. If it was a snigger in front of Willow and Buffy, he and the G-man were having words.

"It wasn't easy," Akira went on, shaking out his wrists a bit. "And that was an ambush, not a fight. In a fair fight he would have killed me."

"Which would be why human Hunters of the supernatural tend to avoid fighting fair," Giles noted. "Thank you, Xander; I've seen part of what I needed. You'd best step off... and shake some feeling back into your hands."

"Hey!" Xander protested. His hands were just fine. Maybe a bit blistered and hurty, but fine.

"I'll probably need you to drag me off after she's done," Akira muttered, eyeing Buffy as the blonde gleefully cracked her knuckles and headed for the mat.

Ouch. Japanese guy had a point. Xander scurried off to scoot up by Willow against the wall, both of them watching Buffy as she circled.

Three fast swipes, at least one of which bounced off an interposed blade. A punch. More slashes. A leg-swipe Akira barely hopped over, followed by a high kick-

Xander's toes curled in a sympathetic cringe, and he scrunched closer to the wall. Oh, that last one had to _hurt_.

Only instead of curling around his pain like any sane man would, Akira turned it into an over the shoulder roll that came up with a shimmer of translucent silver-

Buffy broke right, away from the all-too-real blade suddenly in Akira's hand. The teen broke left.

Rolled to his knees, and stopped, pale and shaking. " _Sumimasen_. S-sorry. Too close."

"Groinshots equal someone's trying to kill me." Buffy looked a little pale herself. "Got it." She stood up, color coming back into her face as she bounced on her toes. "So where'd you hide those? You have a fashion tip for carrying sharp and pointy so it doesn't mess with your shirt lines? Give!"

Akira blinked. Looked at her. At his hands. At his audience.

Groaned, shoulders slumping, and muttered something in Japanese. Xander was pretty sure he caught the word _baka_.

 _I'm an idiot_ , Xander guessed. Thank goodness for Jesse and late nights with anime, or he wouldn't even have a clue about that much.

Wait. Something was wrong about this situation.

"Where'd they go?" Willow was on her feet, looking curious and not at all as disturbed as regular people should be when sharp and pointy vanished without warning. "The air kind of rippled, and - they're gone."

"So either somebody figured out a mini-invisible that works on things instead of people, or magic," Xander summed up.

"You've got magic knives?" Buffy looked like a sale on shoes. "Giles! When do I get magic pointies?"

"Er." Watcher-man took off his glasses, obviously trying to stall while he figured out a good answer. "Those who make enchanted weaponry tend to be very sought after. And highly paranoid."

"You forgot sadistic." Akira held up a hand, flattened as if for _stop_ ; tapped it with a finger, pointing to a faint white line of scar. "I don't think you'd want one of those knives, Buffy. The cost is a lot higher than you'd think."

"Um." Buffy straightened, pulling back a step. "Is that what I think it is?"

Akira shrugged, face a twitch away from a smirk. "Body piercing the hard way?"

"And this is why I hate being right," Buffy grumbled. "Isn't there any nice magic out there?"

"Very little." Giles settled his glasses back on his nose. "However, given I should be able to call Master Wagatsuma this weekend, I'll see if there's anything less dangerous he can suggest. In the meantime - if Spike makes a habit of large-scale assaults, it behooves all of us to brush up on hand-to-hand skills."

Willow _meep_ ed. Xander felt like meeping right along with her. "Don't you mean running and hiding skills?" Xander tried.

"School doesn't have enough hiding places," Buffy said grimly.

"I still need to build up my endurance to run." Akira was looking at him with an expression Xander couldn't quite recognize...

 _No, wait. I know that one. That's Buffy with vamps and a handful of fresh No. 2s. Oh boy_.

"What's that saying you have in English?" Akira smirked, and cracked his knuckles. "This will hurt you more than it hurts me?"

 _Wait, that's not how it's supposed to go-!_

* * *

"Ow..."

Akira flicked a glance over to where Xander was curled up against a mausoleum, then turned his attention back to the thin red-black rent in the air. He'd told the teen to put some ice on everything and rest. But Xander apparently didn't want to go home, so here they were; in a graveyard just after dark, with Willow hanging over an ex-shin's shoulder squinting at the tear, Xander propped up against a nearby tomb, Giles back at his car with books, and Buffy chasing a hapless blue demon that had tried to take a bite out of her.

"Two words!" Buffy fell back, coiling her legs to fling the charging demon over her head. "Breath mints!"

"Rrrraugh!"

...And Akira's sense of the tear sealing skittered again, as Willow glanced back over her shoulder, salt-touched hands clenched into fists. "Don't look at her," Akira said steadily. "Look at the tear."

"B-but, Buffy is-"

Rock grated against rock, as Buffy snatched up the head from a broken angel statue and let fly. "Strike one!"

"Rrraugh-owwwl!"

"Handling the situation," Akira stated, reaching out to the hole in the boundary again. "She has her job. We have ours. Try again."

"O-okay." Willow gulped a breath, determination keeping her from trembling. "Our hands - our hands are..."

"The healers of zero," Akira murmured with her, reaching for shadows to weave them whole. Willow seemed to have a faint grasp on light, better to leave that side to her.

Steel screeched out of concrete footings, and a cemetery bench clanged against inhuman bone. "Strike two!"

"Yowwwwl!"

"Light must, must stay in light," Willow stammered.

"And dark in dark- _down!_ " Akira grabbed her and dove.

A blue-bleeding demon hurtled through where they'd been, claws striking sparks off the tomb.

There was a Xanderish yelp. And a _squish_.

"Strike three," Buffy said gleefully as she bounced over, bending to yank her friend out from under dissolving demon. "You're out of there."

"Oh, well done." Giles caught up with the rest of them, book in hand and a look of relief on his face. "Excellent strike, Xander. The throat is the vulnerable spot on this type."

"Yuck." Xander eyed the blue-spattered stake still clutched in his hand, and dropped it. "Okay. Maybe not as gross as She-Mantis eggs. But still yuck."

Getting up, Akira dusted himself off, then dusted off Willow's knees as she winced with an energy headache; ducking her head would _hurt_. "She-Mantis?"

"Oh, that was awful," Willow lamented. "She pretended to be this hot teacher and she had cheating pheromones that twisted all the boys around, because she was looking for boys who were still-"

"Willow!" Xander wasn't beet-red yet, but he was getting there.

"And I said I'd never mention it again," Willow moaned. "Sorry, Xander. My head..."

"Sealing the boundary takes a lot of energy," Akira stepped in, before either of the two might say something they regretted later. "The first few times are like pulling an all-nighter. You get-" Damn it. He knew the right words in Japanese. "Something like... tired and silly?"

"I believe the term you might be searching for is _punch-drunk_." Giles tucked his book under his arm, watching the demon dissolve. "I'm familiar with the phenomenon from spellcasting. Manipulating energy outside of yourself always takes a bit of your own."

Akira mouthed the phrase, testing the words for meaning. "Something like that."

"But the tear is sealed?" Giles glanced back to where it had been.

"For now. Unless something else weakens the boundary here." Akira drifted his fingers through the air, trying to tease out any of the ominous vibration that would ring through a shin's spirit when something crossed the boundary. "It was easier than sealing it alone. But it was tricky."

"Oh?" Giles gave Buffy a quick pat-down of arms and shoulders, accepted her sigh and rolled eyes of _I'm fine_. "How so?"

"It was like trying to grab two kinds of mist, all mixed together." Willow rubbed her hands over each other, eyes bright with wonder. "I was trying to get all the warm mist, and... Akira just swooped all of the cold away. And we just - kind of pushed it back where it belonged."

"Willow has an affinity for light energies," Akira nodded. "I know other light adepts; I can ask if they know anything that will help..."

Why was everyone staring at him?

"If warm's light, I'm guessing cold is shadow," Buffy noted.

"And you said that Ryuuko guy was a rei," Xander put in. "Which makes no sense whatsoever."

 _Don't flinch_. "I told you he couldn't use all of his power," Akira shrugged. "I'm just glad my feeling was right about Willow. There aren't many people with the potential to be adepts."

"Yes; it would be useful to have something more than a hunch to identify potential allies," Giles mused. "I'll have to ask Master Wagatsuma when I call him."

* * *

"A dowsing pendulum?" Ensconced in his own chair at home, for once, Giles made yet another note. "I suppose sometimes the old ways are the best."

" _I can send you something with imbued shadow,"_ Shuichi stated. _"For now, you can use the salt for a process of elimination. If the pendulum pulls toward the salt, you have a light affinity. If it does nothing, there's no affinity. And if it pulls away-"_

"A shadow affinity," Giles concluded. "I see." He hesitated, wondering how much he was risking with these next words. "And what would happen if I handed Akira that pendulum?"

A pause. _"You already know he has a shadow affinity."_

"Oh, indeed," Giles agreed. "He tries to hide it, but your salt seems to make him itch violently. Willow has no such reaction. Which is what makes the situation so very curious. Given Ryuuko was a rei."

" _Giles..."_

 _When all else fails, bring out a bigger hammer_. "Buffy told me that if I would trust you to heal her, I had her permission to tell you who she is," Giles said gravely. "I am watching over the current Slayer, Shuichi. And her quite human friends. Which allows me the opportunity to compare human and supernatural levels of strength, agility, and healing." One deliberate silence, to bring the hammer down. "Akira isn't quite human, is he?"

" _Rupert. As a friend, and as a Watcher who wants the best for his charge - don't tell him."_

Giles raised curious brows at the sudden worry in that calm voice. "Whyever not?"

" _Because it's a_ mess. _"_ For once, Shuichi Wagatsuma sounded truly miserable. _"Between what Ryuuko did, and what Shirogane thought, and what Kou and I let Shirogane do because we hadn't quite unraveled the truth of the situation - he'd be angry at all of us, and he'd be_ right _to be. But Homurabi still wants him dead, and Shirogane is the only one of us who can get to California fast enough if Homurabi finds him. Akira has to trust Shirogane, Rupert. His life depends on it."_

"Then unless a life is at stake, I will not tell him," Giles said somberly. "But we've already dealt with a witch powerful enough to lay deadly curses on the Hellmouth. If similar spells are cast, I will need to know what other magic I am dealing with to help him."

" _True,"_ Shuichi said heavily. _"And despite some of your past unfortunate habits, your word has always been good."_

The Watcher winced. "You have seen me at my lowest, yes. I would understand if you didn't trust me."

" _Rupert."_ It was a wry, gentle chuckle. _"That is_ why _I trust you. You made a very unfortunate mistake, and suffered the consequences. You promised you would never do something that selfish and foolish again, and you have kept your word."_

It still ached. "I didn't suffer nearly enough."

" _We can discuss your survivor guilt later,"_ Shuichi said tartly. _"Akira has enough of his own. Of all Ryuuko's court, only Kou survived. Akira has been living with that guilt, without_ remembering _it, for years."_

Memories of Ripper were too close to the surface; Giles had to stifle a growl. "Not to speak ill of the dead, but I'm not feeling kindly inclined toward Ryuuko."

" _You're not responsible for forgiving him,"_ Shuichi stated, an edge in the normally even voice. _"The balance between light and shadow must be maintained, or both realms might fall to the sort of Powers that lie chained beneath your library."_

Ouch. A low blow-

" _You are a Watcher. You know that the good of the world sometimes requires a sacrifice."_

No. _That_ was the lowest of blows. "I will never abandon my Slayer, no matter what the _good of the world_ might demand!"

" _Then protect him, Rupert."_ No more anger; just a weary plea. _"Protect him, because I can't. My duty to the realms won't let me. The balance_ must _be maintained. And Akira is of the royal blood of the rei."_

 _What?_

" _Don't ask me how,"_ Shuichi went on, words tumbling over each other. _"I don't know who began that line. By the time Kou found him Akira's father had been missing for a year; there's no way to know if he was rei passing for human, or a human of rei blood who never awakened. Ryuuko existed for thousands of years. He had a true love, but I know he strayed from time to time, when a human woman was in sorrow and in pain that he could heal."_ A thump, as if Shuichi had decided to take out his frustration on his perfectly innocent bar. _"And Akira looks so much like him, Rupert. He_ sounds _like him."_

Normally, the fact that Shuichi had known the murdered rei king well enough to know his voice would be daunting. But Giles knew what most arcane researchers who'd contacted the light adept by phone never did.

 _Shuichi is blind_.

And there was only one way a blind man could be _certain_ he knew a face.

 _Shuichi's been close enough to the rei king to touch him. And Ryuuko_ allowed _it_.

Which meant he'd been right, all these years, not to confirm some of the rumors and myths of shin and rei to the Council. Shuichi wasn't just learned in the lore of that shadow-world. He'd been _part_ of it. The Council would no more trust him than they would a reformed werewolf.

 _And Shuichi believes Ryuuko possessed one of his own descendants?_ Mess _doesn't begin to describe it_. "You want me to protect him," Giles said carefully. "From whom? Or what? The Hellmouth? Homurabi?" _Yourself?_

The faintest chill wafted over his neck. Giles whirled, going for the loaded crossbow on the coffee table-

"I think Master Wagatsuma wishes you to protect Akira from me."

A long silver braid of hair. Black hat and longcoat. A skull-headed cane, and a smile as warm and friendly as fresh brownies in a graveyard.

 _And no shadow_.

Giles seized hold of his nerve in an iron grip, and kept the phone in hand. "The shin Shirogane, I presume."

" _Is he there? That idiot-!"_ Shuichi lapsed into something neither English nor Japanese; Giles didn't recognize the language, but he could certainly discern _thoroughly ticked off_ -

No. He did recognize that ancient tongue. It simply seemed impossible. Even demons had forgotten that speech, if any left on Earth were old enough to know it. If he was right... it might explain quite a bit of how easily Akira had made himself at home in a Watcher's library.

"Now, now, Master; let us use words my generous host can understand. It's only polite." Shirogane's smile deepened, and one blue eye shuttered in a wink. "As for why am I here, I'd think it would be obvious. Akira gets in so much trouble if no one looks in on him." The smile faded, no longer hiding the steel will beneath. "Exorcizing salt burns him? How badly?"

" _It shouldn't be burning him at all,"_ Shuichi grumbled. _"It dissolves dark energies; humans and sh- rei should be immune."_

"It's not a burn," Giles corrected both of them. Had Shuichi begun to say _shin_ instead of rei? Why? And how, precisely, could Shuichi hear Shirogane on the phone from across the room?

 _Best to consider that later_. "It reminds me most of a poison ivy rash. You did tell him he had an allergic reaction to Ryuuko's possession. I found that phrasing rather curious. Most who deal with injured spirits speak of a more physical trauma. Holes torn in the soul. Wounded hearts. But Akira pays attention to details, and he states you said _allergic reaction_. So I did a bit of research." In stolen moments, between training Buffy, researching Spike, and doing the actual work of a school librarian. "Imagine my surprise at how very many ways a human body can destroy itself. _Toxin-induced loss of tolerance_. TILT, as some in the field call it. One massive exposure to something that overwhelms the body's defenses, and the immune system goes on paranoid alert forever after. It may have been magic rather than organophosphates, but Akira's exposure to Ryuuko is otherwise a classic case." He met Shirogane's no longer friendly gaze. "In case you're unfamiliar with the phenomenon, human allergies tend to worsen over time, especially with repeated exposure to the offending agent. As one of the few responsible adults aware of exactly what Akira is handling, I intend to advise him to avoid using light-charged salt. So I hope there is an alternative he can use for sealing tears, or he's in a bit of a sticky wicket."

Blue eyes were slitted like a cat's, and flickers of red-black played around the skull of the cane. "As if you have any right to interfere-"

" _Shirogane!"_ Shuichi said sharply. _"You don't know human medicine. Just stop."_

The shin blinked, blue eyes human again. Giles tried not to sweat. The rumors of shin weren't clear on exactly what their powers were, and he was disinclined to find out the hard way.

" _Tell Akira to use one of the energy-shedding exercises before he begins,"_ Shuichi went on. _"He should be healed enough for that now."_

Giles stiffened, startled. "I've used those myself, and I am not particularly magically adept." He ought to get back into the habit of using them; reacting as Buffy's Watcher sometimes meant handling energies in a tearing hurry. Spells were far easier to perform if the caster periodically rid themselves of negative energy; by the time they'd tracked down the usual Hellmouth menace, there simply wasn't time for a full ritual cleansing. "Exactly how badly was he injured?"

"Badly." Some of the starch seemed to wilt from Shirogane's stance, cane merely a silver-headed stick once more. "He transferred energy to me to save my life. And I... I am not a small thing, like a brownie or a faerie light, fed on a bowl of milk and moonlit water. What he gave me could have killed him. He knew that, and he gave it to me anyway; even though he was Akira, and never Ryuuko at all."

There was a plaintive bewilderment in that voice, matching the lost look almost hidden under a black brim. Giles found himself wanting to pat the man on the shoulder, shin or not. Buffy and the others might not know what they were hearing, children of a nation that declared a street sweeper might speak to the highest office in the land and be heard. But Giles had been raised in England, where class and breeding were everything, even when they shouldn't be, and he thought he might have grasped part of the trouble here. "Sir," he said with quiet respect, "has it been that long since you had a friend?"

From the startled look on Shirogane's face, and Shuichi's soft sound of dismay - yes, it had.

"That's ridiculous," Shirogane protested. "Friends don't-"

"I assure you, friends do," Giles cut him off. "The children under my care may have faltered, and they've often been afraid; which only shows their good sense, given the level of peril involved in simply walking the Hellmouth's streets. But Buffy is alive today because her friends have willingly gone into harm's way, and risked their own lives to save hers." He lowered his voice, to soften the blow. "It's a very human thing to do."

Blue eyes were fathomless. "I have never been human."

Ah. Dangerous ground. But perhaps he'd been around his vibrant Slayer too long; Giles forged onward. "Are you quite sure? There's little lore on your kind, to be sure. But while the kokuchi and hakua are certainly inhuman, what I can tease from myth and legend indicates that shin and rei may have originated from a mystical symbiosis, long ago." He cleared his throat, and carefully enunciated words linguists had deduced over the past century. _"A very long time ago, Lord of Silver-Shining-Purity."_

The hat brim rose, as Shirogane fixed him with his full attention. _"Where did you-_ how _did you-?"_

Giles dipped his head. "English, if you would be so kind, Lord Shirogane. I'm only a dabbler in the tongue of those ancient riders on the Black Sea's shore. It isn't a written language, after all, and the Watcher's Council has ever focused on ancient tomes and prophecies. But the knowledge has come in handy when I've needed to guess at old tongues I do not know. Which is more often than I would like," the Watcher admitted. _Tread carefully. Even an ancient lord has his pride. Especially an ancient lord_. "Supporting the Slayer on the Hellmouth is never easy. Any aid you or those you favor might choose to grant us would only be helpful."

"Prettily spoken, when you already know Akira will not flee this fight." Hands clasped on the silver skull. "But he has been a warrior in the shadows, and I will not bar him from the battlefield if he chooses to fight." He raised a gloved hand, shadows gathering behind him. "Just... look after him. When those he cares for are in danger, he can be reckless."

Shadows shimmered, and Shirogane was gone.

" _Giles?"_ Shuichi's voice was wary, and worried.

As well he should be, Giles admitted to himself, letting out a relieved breath. He'd just crossed swords with a being older than most civilizations; old enough to remember Proto-Indo-European as a living tongue, not a relic of dust and guesswork. And he'd walked away alive.

Giles sank back in his chair, and sighed. "I really could do with a cup of tea."

* * *

A/N: When it comes to both fighting and wound treatment, Akira may not always have the best advice. He was trained by Kou, off and on - and Kou is a rei, not human.

Riders on the Black Sea's shore - from the best linguistic and archaeological evidence, the Proto-Indo-Europeans came from that general area. Shirogane means silver, and there's an ancient association of silver with royalty and divinity in the Indo-European groups. I know at one point in MF canon Shirogane's supposed to be "eternal", but given it's assumed he _can_ be killed, and Ryuuko is killed and reincarnates, it makes sense in the Buffyverse for the shin and rei to be of some kind of human origin. (Or at least human-demon crosses.)


	7. Chapter 7

_Escort duty for sugar-craving children_ , Akira thought moodily, following Xander into the shop corner that held the cheaper costume odds and ends _. Not the most dangerous thing I've ever done. I think. Though I suppose it's more useful than anything else I've managed lately_.

He'd tried, the past few weeks. He and Willow had mended some tears, encouraged a few kokuchi to head back across the boundary, and helped watch Buffy's back while she put down the latest crop of vampires in the cemeteries. But the Incan mummy, the demon-summoning frat boys... he'd been less help than Xander. His fellow teen might grump about only being good for bringing research snacks, but Xander wouldn't keel over dead if he were possessed by a kokuchi. Ampata's seal and the frathouse had been swarming with the vicious parasites. Akira hadn't dared get within a block of either of them. Which had at least warned them all there was a _problem_.

 _I hate being helpless!_

He'd never wanted to get caught up in anyone's war. Now he'd been dragged into two - and the wounds he'd taken in the first had crippled him for the second. It ate at him.

 _If only I had_ -

No. No, he shouldn't go there. So he could only do the small things of a crippled adept, not the wild combat of a shin. At least he could take some of the pressure off Buffy, so she could fight without having to constantly look over her shoulder.

Still. Knowing Buffy and Cordelia had almost been eaten by a snake demon, while he'd been dodging kokuchi drawn to the area like flies...

 _Stop thinking about it. You're not a shin. Live with it_.

 _...Besides. Xander's talking_.

"I just don't get it," Xander was complaining, shoving aside a black longcoat missing one sleeve as he dug through the bargain bin for a toy gun that didn't have obvious missing pieces. "She was one of the cool kids at Hemery, Buffy should know about the guy code-"

 _Aha_. "Buffy may know," Akira interrupted. "The Slayer may not."

Mid-scrabble, Xander paused. "Okay, here we come to the not making sense part of the conversation. Buffy _is_ the Slayer."

"Buffy is _a_ Slayer," Akira corrected him; on firmer ground, he'd poked through Shirogane's notes and no few tomes of Giles' to piece this together. "Before she was Called, she was an ordinary girl. After - the Slayer is a _hunter_. And too many supernatural creatures can look like ordinary humans. Especially in Sunnydale."

"Whoa, whoa," Xander glanced around, and lowered his voice. "Are you saying she seriously thought a jock trying to get his Neanderthal on was something going bump in the night?"

Akira arched a brow, and he was _not_ going to think how that was like Shirogane. "Witch cheerleaders. Praying mantis teachers. Brain-eating demons at the talent show." Just a few of the many, many supernatural incidents that had been associated with the school before he'd arrived; the Scoobies had given him a long list, so they could check every area for tears. They'd found too many for anyone's comfort. "What are the odds that she'd be wrong?"

Xander winced.

"But she may not have _thought_ about it, before she moved." Akira swallowed. Damn it, he did not want to talk about this. But they knew most of it, and arguments between friends were _asking_ for parasite kokuchi to drop into the mix. "Xander. When I was," _a shin_ , "possessed, there were... instincts, that were very hard to fight. Even now, when I see someone acting on their darker emotions, the first thing I look for is a shadow inside them. _Now_ , I think about it. Then, it was _instinct_. And if I didn't have time to look - I hit them with everything I had. Because if they were possessed, I couldn't risk holding back. Which meant I couldn't afford to take the chance that they _weren't_." _Keep going. Just say it_. "You've never seen a full possession. You've _never_ seen an inversion. The world goes red. The boundary between this world and the shadows turns liquid as water, and any normal human who falls through will die. And it spreads so _fast_. If someone's possessed by a kokuchi and _you can't get it loose_ \- the only answer may be to kill them."

For a frozen moment Xander stood there, toy rifle dangling from one hand. "...Whoof."

Akira shrugged. "I don't know if the Slayer is like that. Ask Giles. If he knows."

"Did you- no. Bad question. Shutting up now," Xander said firmly.

Akira shook his head. "I got lucky." If you could call it luck, racing to beat the clock and break possessions before Shirogane cut the unlucky victims down. "But I always knew next time, I might not be."

"Possessed-you is scary," Xander muttered.

"Heh. I wish the kokuchi had thought that." Akira pushed the coat aside again, wondering if there was anything in this bin that might be worthwhile, he saw a decent whip but he'd never wanted to be Indiana Jones-

 _Wait a minute_.

One sleeve already detached. And it wouldn't take much to get rid of the other.

 _Oh, why the hell not_.

Xander gripped his rifle, bringing it up to his shoulder in what might be an attempt at present arms. "You look like a guy with a plan."

 _Coat, think I've got boots, have a shirt that'll do at home thanks to Hamlet. Should look for pants, hair dye, and_ \- "I need a cross pin," Akira said decisively.

"No vamps out tonight, Giles says," Xander pointed out.

"There's more to the undead than vampires," Akira said wryly. Which was why he had no intention of looking for red contacts. He didn't plan on fighting tonight, but the local monsters didn't stick to plans. Things in his eyes? Bad idea. "This way Snyder won't know what I am. It'll drive him crazy."

Xander perked up at that, and started hunting.

It took a little time, and added up to more allowance money than Akira had intended to spend. But it was worth it, to put together the image of what he did miss about those frantic nights at Shirogane's side.

 _Freedom. Running with the wind, because I could. Knowing that so long as my resolve was strong, I could cut through anything_.

No one else would get the outfit. But that was all right, he wasn't going to run into anyone who'd laugh at what he was pretending to be-

"Ack!"

Ruffles. Lace. A low-cut bosom.

It was red and black, not Lulu's black-and-shadowlace, but the resemblance was close enough he already had a blade in hand.

"Ack?" The proprietor, Ethan if the shop sign wasn't lying, gave him an arch look that almost measured up to Shirogane's. "Young man, I assure you the proper response of a gentleman to a princess is _not_ 'ack'."

 _Please let him not have seen_. Akira made the knife vanish, straightening. "Where I'm from, a proper _hime_ wears clothing a lot more-"

Uh-oh. That was _killing intent_. He hadn't felt a battle-aura that utterly ticked off since Lulu had called Aya a small-breasted gorilla.

"Formal, and stiff," Akira said cautiously, praying it would be enough. "Definitely not as graceful to the figure." Where was the source of that lethal intent? It seemed to be behind Ethan, if only the man weren't so tall-

"Graceful?" Xander snorted. "I prefer my ladies in spandex. That looks like something Buffy would snatch to wave under Deadboy's nose... ah. Buffy. Wills. Hi..."

"Die heroically," Akira advised, and bolted for the cash register.

Some perils, even a shin might not hope to survive.

* * *

"Buffy! My Duchess of Buffonia. I totally renounce spandex."

Okay, that was almost enough to let the Deadboy comment slide, Buffy decided. "Why thank you, good sir modern knight," she curtsied, catching her mother's amused smile out of the corner of her eye. Great; now her mom would be dropping hints about proper high-class manners for a week.

Oh well. It might be worth it, if Xander took a second look at the redheaded hottie in his life. Not to mention Xander was pulling off the fatigues in a really good way. Which... might not be of the good, if some other girl took a second look and arrowed in on the nicest guy in school.

Lucky for Willow, Akira was going to be the edible distraction. Loose white shirt, hair dyed black as his sleeveless coat, dark red pants with an odd white strip of cloth haphazardly wrapped around his right leg, and dark boots made for stomping. Wow. And somehow, _weird_.

"Okay, Akira, I give up," Joyce said, amused. "A vampire?"

 _Cross on his collar would fry him_ , Buffy almost blurted out. "Oh, they're - so Victorian throwback, these days," she got out instead. "Nobody at Sunnydale High would be that uncool." She hoped. Oh boy.

"Were I to suffer such a fate, I should hope to meet the sunrise," Akira declared. Curved his arm and bowed, in a graceful way Buffy had only seen in old Sherlock Holmes movies. "Akira Nikaidou, Childe of the Silver Lord of the Land of Shadows."

He rose, and Buffy thought she caught a wistful flicker in gray eyes, almost hidden by the wry smile. "It's a pretty obscure legend, Mrs. Summers. Even in Japan. But it's a fun look."

A legend. Right. "Well, sir knights of steel and shadow," Buffy improvised, "if you find my garb not unattractive, pray but wait until you lay eyes upon..."

A white sheet descended the stairs.

"Casper," Buffy tried not to sigh.

Her mother had offered to drive all of them, but they'd elected to walk over to school while it was still daylight. Halloween was supposed to be dead for the monsters, and Buffy had wanted a chance to see the town she protected without having to worry about the latest slavering horror breathing down her neck.

 _Maybe we should have taken the car anyway_ , Buffy thought ruefully, watching how stiffly Willow walked under her ghost-sheet. Hacker-girl was serious when she said she didn't do sexy. Maybe she should have tried to get Willow to wear something a little less showy and more grownup professional. Like - ooo. Diana Prince, in her secret identity, without the Wonder Woman costume. They could have asked Joyce to help them find a suit and everything.

 _Well, I guess there's next year_ \- "Xander?"

Their Special Forces Xander had stopped for a second, pulling something out of his trick-or-treat bag that uncoiled to be long and lithe and leather.

Grinning, Xander offered her the whip. "Figured you could tell people it's for chasing off impudent cut-purses."

"Ooo." Buffy hefted it, getting a feel for the weight and flexibility, then counted on the Slayer as she lifted and snapped-

One leaf fluttered off a nearby rosebush, slashed through. Akira flinched.

"Like you said," Xander shrugged at their legend-dressed buddy. "Just because the vampires stay in, doesn't mean everything will. And I always feel better when the Buffster's armed and ready for things that go bump."

Okay, that was definitely worth letting some teasing slide. "Thanks," Buffy grinned.

"S-so," Willow cleared her throat as they moved on again. "What are you going as, Akira?"

"A Childe of the Lord of Shadow." Akira fell into pace with them, gray eyes searching their surroundings. "The Children are the most powerful shin and rei, outside of the Kings themselves; every Childe is bound by contract to one of the Kings in particular. Think of it as something between an adoption and becoming a feudal thane to a king."

Huh. Fit in with some of the stuff on shadows, light, and their respective adepts that Giles had been filling them in on since Parent-Teacher Night. So okay, not a vampire, but still a weird pick. "What, you think if you dress like them, the kokuchi will leave you alone tonight?" Buffy quipped.

"I live in hope." His gaze never stopped searching the area for shadows where none should be. "Halloween's supposed to be a bad time for tears. I thought I felt a kokuchi following us toward Ethan's, but it disappeared before we got inside."

And Akira's feelings about hakua and kokuchi were at least as reliable as her knack of picking out vampires by the serious fashion fails. So if there had been a kokuchi near the costume shop, where had it gone?

 _Stick on the to-worry-about list, and tell Giles when we see him_ , Buffy told herself firmly. Shook out the whip's coils again, making sure her hands knew the weight of it. And caught Akira's wince. "What, whips bad?"

"Not exactly." Akira gave her a sidelong glance. "I'm not the only one who could pass for a shin tonight."

"Seriously?" Willow blurted out. "Giles has records of one who uses a whip?"

"Records, hell. Lulu went after me." Akira shrugged, as if it weren't any bigger deal than staking a newly-risen fledgling. "Don't worry about it. You're as frilly as she was, but your hair's not bubble-gum-pink-"

"Frilly?" Buffy said grimly.

"-you're not burbling like a J-pop fan about how you want the King's kiss all over you, and you're not exploding out of that dress with every bounce..." One hand still shaping an exaggerated curve in front of his chest, Akira finally glanced at her face.

 _He did_ not _just call me tiny_. Fists curling on her whip, Buffy struggled to count to ten. _Ooo, when I get in reach-!_

"Die heroically?" Xander suggested.

"Ch'. Like I'd go down that easily!"

Buffy was expecting him to bolt. Heck, in a way she was counting on it; the job tonight was escorting candy-robbers, which meant lots of walking, which meant while her shoes might look dressy she'd picked a pair she could run in. And when it came to pure running, Slayer beat human every time.

She was not expecting the dash, grab, and jump as Akira used his head start and a few extra inches of height to pull off a perfect acrobatic flip up on top of a neighbor's elegant stone wall.

"You'll have to catch me, first!"

Still grinning, he ran for it.

 _Rip my skirts if I tried that, darn it_.

Buffy took off after him, running down the sidewalk for the pure giggles of racing because she _wanted_ to. No lives on the line. No monster behind her if she slipped. Just Akira's taunting dash in front of her, using agility and sharp wits to carry him over and across obstacles she had to dodge.

 _Why doesn't he try out for track or something? He says his endurance sucks, but he's been getting better with every spar_.

Only it wasn't endurance that kept Akira away from the jocks, and she knew it. Track was a boring run on a boring ring of a course and Akira would hate it with the heat of a thousand fiery suns. Track wasn't anything like this; using the whole world as your obstacle course, knowing how to shift weight and balance to skim over stone and chain-link and wobbly boards.

But even if track hadn't been boring, Akira wouldn't be doing it. Any more than she'd kept up cheerleading, after they'd dealt with Amy's witch of a mother.

 _He's a shadow adept. I'm the Slayer_.

They had _responsibilities_. Damn it. And Akira might kick himself for not being able to do more than seal tears, but that was _helping_. People were sticking closer to the street lights at night, and the number of new fledglings popping up seemed to be going down. Not a lot, maybe one or two less a week - but that was one more person whose dusted face didn't play in her nightmares.

Not to mention an hour or two more of sleep here and there, plus - oh man - actual doing of homework. If this kept up, her mom might stop giving her worried looks all the time, and why hadn't the Watchers ever gotten adepts to help before?

"No idea, though I'm beginning to suspect some sort of territorial dispute," Giles had said a few days ago, when she'd asked. "Oddly enough, the origins of shin and rei have many things in common with that of the Slayer." The Watcher was pretending to study his texts, just as she and Akira were trying not to watch too closely as Willow tried using some of Master Wagatsuma's light techniques to heal Xander's paper-cut. "The records of both are fragmentary, and mostly myth, but the little we do know implies a voluntary sacrifice on both occasions. In the Slayer's case, one girl stepped forward to become a guardian against demons. For the light and shadowfolk, giving up their existence as humans, for the power to keep the balance between both sides of reality." He tapped a pen beside a tome. "I wonder if it might not be the success of the Slayer that required light and shadows to need balance. While the Elder Gods made this world a hell, reality would have been torn and remade at their whims. Sustaining a more gentle ecosystem of light and shadow might have needed active human interference. A bit like setting up a greenhouse, one might say; only in humanity's case the delicate flower would be civilization..." He trailed off at Buffy and Akira's mutual sour looks.

"Not exactly a volunteer," Buffy said wryly.

"And most shin and rei I met didn't care about humans," Akira added. "A few would rather not kill people. But if someone threatens the balance-" He'd shrugged.

"Quite so," Giles had inclined his head. "One of the reasons modern magic is so deucedly difficult is because of the limitations built into it. The spells I know last for a day, or an hour, or even a moment; and that specificity takes a considerable amount of the energy that might otherwise fuel the spell itself. The enchantment that created the Slayer line was meant to continue indefinitely; and so it has, no matter what those who might currently host its magic might wish."

Which might have been just something to mope and gripe about, if Buffy hadn't seen the worry and longing on Akira's face as Willow squeaked in triumph, and Xander grinned as the paper-cut faded away.

 _If Willow can heal, even just a little, it'll help us_.

Except Akira was allergic to light magic. If he got hurt, the best thing Willow could do was stay away.

 _Back in Japan, if the kokuchi got lucky, Wagatsuma could help him_ , Buffy thought now, watching their shadow adept hesitate just one moment before altering his route to bounce down to the ground and back up to the next fence, instead of trying to take a jump only a Slayer could manage. _Now - he's got to be careful. He can't fight the way he did then. He'd get killed_.

Like she would, if the Slayer magic ever left her high and dry and she tried to tackle vamps one on one anyway. A normal person couldn't take vampires hand to hand. She'd have to find another way. And it would _suck_.

But sucky or not, she'd still do it. Xander, Willow, Giles, even Cordelia - they did what they could, magic or no magic. Because the monsters were out there, and they all knew it.

 _Like Akira knows it_.

He knew the odds, and he could still run through Sunnydale like a kid scrambling over a jungle gym. Buffy grinned at that, and kept running.

Snyder-trolling or not, Halloween was going to be fun.

* * *

"Those two are insane," Xander muttered under his breath, doing his best to keep the racing pair in sight.

"Kind of - fun though," Willow huffed alongside him. Which made him wonder what was under the Boo. Willow's usual skirts would have slowed her down, and it didn't sound like pants legs slapping against the sheet-

And he was trying to deduce what his bestest bud ever was wearing underneath her Boo. Bad Xander. No Twinkie.

It was kind of fun watching that pair race, though. How the heck had Akira learned to flip like that? And was there anywhere he could go to sign up? "Guys," Xander called out, "we're getting close to the school!"

Akira never slowed. He cartwheeled past an SUV heading into the school parking lot to drop off munchkins, flung himself up and over the wall by the open gate-

Buffy, Xander knew, could clear the school wall in one leap from a standing start, do a hands-free spin, and land on the other side. The Slayer was awesome that way.

Akira had to hurl himself up and over, with a grip on the top of the fence for an extra yank once he'd grabbed it. But he cleared the wall, spun, and thumped onto a van roof and then a Cadillac's hood, touching down in front of Buffy and a bunch of costumed trick-or-treaters in the best flamboyant style Xander had seen since Carmen Sandiego made off with the Sphinx.

" _Mommy! I wanna do that!"_

"So do I, kid," Xander muttered ruefully. And Akira said he didn't know how to deal with people. The adept probably wasn't going to have any trouble from the munchkins for the rest of the night.

"Nikaidou!" came an all too familiar snarl.

Trouble from the kids, however, was probably the least of their worries. Xander kept a good grip on Willow's sheet-clad shoulder as they snuck into the parking lot, praying they wouldn't be noticed. Snyder was almost purple.

"Principal Snyder." Akira inclined his head. "Good evening."

"And Summers," the troll growled. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Are we _sure_ he's human?" Xander whispered, as he and Willow took advantage of Snyder's distraction to get themselves mixed into the rest of the student volunteers.

"Uh-huh," Willow sighed regretfully. "Though there's some weird stuff in his emails to Police Chief Monroe. Why does a principal even need to email the chief of police? And the ones I've opened so far all seem like they're talking around something, you know? Like we do when... we're discussing library research."

"You're reading Snyder's email? Willow, you electric rebel." What she'd said caught up with his brain, and Xander blanched. "Wait. You mean - the cops _know?_ "

"Death by falling onto barbecue forks?" The way the sheet shook was somehow sad. "Cops see the... the bodies, right? They have to see that something's wrong."

Oh, joy. Life in Sunnydale just kept getting better.

"Don't talk to them," Snyder was ordering as Akira and Buffy were each handed over to their individual tiny hordes. "The last thing they need is to pick up any of your bad habits."

"But it's okay if someone talks to us, right?" Buffy was doing her best to look princess-sweet and bubbly. "Kids, did you know they don't even have trick-or-treating in Japan? You have to tell Akira all about it!"

Xander couldn't make out what Akira might have said through the sudden excited-kid babble, but it looked like it might have been _traitor_.

"It's kind of weird," Willow said, half to herself. "The way they get each other. It's like he stole her crayons when they were little."

"Maybe it's just the interest in mutual thumping," Xander said wryly.

"Oh." The ghost-head straightened a little. "That's what's different. I thought it was just the costume. But it's like he's sparring. Except Akira's never like that unless he's sparring."

 _Or fighting for real_ , Xander almost said. But didn't, as Pirate Larry got mixed in between them and Snyder waded in to parcel off kids to reluctant teenagers.

But Willow was right. The way Akira had raced Buffy to school; the way he moved, even now, not the angry teenage hooligan but loose and light as if Snyder were the least of his problems...

 _He looks ready for a fight_. Xander swallowed. _He looks_ happy.

Halloween was supposed to be quiet. Giles said so. And the G-man wouldn't lie about that.

Xander straightened his shoulders, and gathered up his troops. "All right, men. On sleazing extra candy: tears are key..."

* * *

 _Restless spirits. Moroi, some of them, if I'm not mistaken_. Ethan Rayne eyed the half-seen forms hovering outside his wards, held at bay by spells he'd used for years to keep intangible threats off his precious neck. _The Hellmouth is even more interesting than I thought_.

Interesting, and potentially profitable. The aftermath of Halloween should leave the good citizens of Sunnydale dazed and scattered enough for him to collect any youngsters with untrained power. And there would be a few of those, without a doubt. That redhead who'd walked in with the Slayer, for one; the mystical scan linked to his register drawer had shown definite traces of light magic. She'd fetch a good price from demon sorcerers who wanted a piece of that.

Though for a moment he'd thought the Slayer had dragged two potential mages in with her. The dangerous look in gray eyes, when the Japanese youngster had made what must have been a mundane knife vanish up his sleeve...

For one instant, not even a blink, Ethan could have sworn that knife wasn't honest steel, but silvery and _transparent_.

But his register scan hadn't picked up more than the faintest vibration of dark magic. No more than you'd expect from a violent punk on the Hellmouth; not nearly enough to indicate a human carrying an arcane blade. Certainly not worth snatching on his way out of town, no matter how well demons paid. Pity.

Ah well. Profit came second tonight. First and foremost, Halloween was for Janus.

Anointing himself, Ethan nodded to the two-faced bust in sober respect. _Showtime!_

* * *

It hit like drowning.

One minute Akira was shepherding an assortment of fairies, Jedi, warriors and princesses around, making a note to see if they could catch up to the Boo a few houses over. The next-

Darkness flooded in like water, as he gasped out a last breath of the lighted world. Every cell in his body vibrated; his eyes burned, gray blazing to ruby-red by the kiss of shadows...

He stood on the sidewalk, panting, eyes wide as he saw that damn spooky-ugly Doppler doll where his shadow had lain.

 _Grab it!_

Scoop, pocket, turn; if he couldn't remember why he'd shifted to shin form something must have hit him _hard_. Meaning Aya and Kengo were probably in worse... trouble...

Different houses. Different streetlights.

 _Sunnydale. Not Japan_.

Yet he could feel the shadows flowing through him as fiercely as if he'd never given that dark power back to Shirogane. What on earth was going on?

 _And how am I going to hide my eyes from the children?_

"Sith!"

"Jedi!"

"In the name of the Moon, I will punish you!"

Akira leapt up and left as the blaze of golden magic swept past, taking down one dark-cloaked child with a red lightsaber, a few random demonic-looking little ones, and one hapless mini-Mountie in red.

Perching on a roofline, Akira looked down and shook his head. The fairies and the X-Babies seemed to have made common cause to protect those few kids who were still just in costume, and the stray tiny grim warriors who might have tried to put a blade through fallen demons were getting a blistering lecture about friendship from a pint-sized Sailor Moon...

And Akira had to close his eyes a moment and just breathe in the night, because he'd only meant to dodge. To step out of the path of the blow, like any canny human street fighter would.

But shadows were singing in his blood, light magic was _dangerous_ , and reflex had kicked in before he could think. He'd jumped.

Sidewalk to roof ridge in one leap. Easy as breathing.

 _I missed this_.

But Shirogane's rose was hot under his shirt, like it was burning against the dark. And it wouldn't do that... _if_ this were really Shirogane's shadow magic sealed onto his soul.

Pale hands clenched into fists. It wasn't _fair_.

But he'd been charged with looking after innocent brats for the night. He couldn't set that responsibility aside just for what he wanted.

 _Something - someone - did this. We have to find out who. And stop them_.

First things first. Not everyone down there seemed to be affected. He had to find his friends, get the kids to safety, find Giles-

 _Oh gods_.

He moved with the speed of pure panic, racing roof to roof and leaping down to where he'd seen the ghost-sheet heading. The kids would just have to look after themselves for a minute. If what he feared about the costumes was true-

"Buffy!" Willow had lost her sheet, wearing a tight blouse and short skirt that made Akira want to grin in honest appreciation. "Xander! Akira!"

"Here." Akira touched down on the sidewalk, relieved. "Are you alright?"

"I think I kind of... passed out. My body's got a heartbeat, but I can't get back in-" Willow flinched. "Your eyes!"

"They'll be fine," Akira said impatiently. "Hopefully you will, too-"

Something rattled the air, harsh and explosive, in a way he'd only heard on TV before. _Was that gunfire?_

"Xander!" Willow took off toward the noise.

"Of course," Akira sighed, and followed her. Guns were real, too? The night was definitely going downhill fast.

 _How many kids went as cowboys and Indians? Or cops and yakuza? Or worse?_

The bullets hadn't been real minutes ago, and they probably wouldn't be real as soon as Giles could tell them how to end this mess. But right now, they were real. Based on his past experience with magic, that would be enough.

 _Willow should be okay as long as she stays away from magic weapons. Sounds like she's an_ ikiryou, _all we have to do is get her spirit back in her body when this is over. But anyone who dies now - odds are, they die for real. What kind of sick creature does something like this?_

"Xander! Oh, thank goodness-" Willow's hand slipped through the young soldier's shoulder, as if he were the ghost.

Xander shivered, and turned toward her, gaze skipping over Akira entirely. "Ma'am! I don't know what the situation is here, but there are multiple hostiles. You need to find some cover."

"They're not hostiles, they're kids!" Willow tried to reach for him again, but gave up when she almost fell through a mailbox.

Xander jumped back, rifle aimed but finger off the trigger. "What the _hell?_ "

"It's Halloween!" Willow tried to steady herself on her feet, looking dubiously at surroundings that weren't solid. "I went as a ghost, and now I'm a real ghost!"

"Living ghost, hopefully," Akira put in.

"Oh right, those were neat... never mind. Xander, you went as a soldier, and now I guess you're a real soldier-"

"Who are you talking to?" Xander demanded, eyes darting over and across where Willow had glanced at a shin. "Are you a hologram? Is this some kind of really FUBAR training exercise? Because if it is, I need to _talk_ to whoever's in charge about issuing live ammo and no explosives!"

"I'm... talking to Akira." Willow gulped. "Explosives?"

Xander frowned. "Must be pretty tiny comms. Who's Akira?"

And the night just kept getting better. "Most humans can't see shin," Akira reminded Willow.

"But you're not a- oh. Costume. Right." Willow swallowed. "We've got to find Buffy!"

"Buffy?" Xander sighed. "Spooks, huh? Must be CIA, only the Virginia farmboys would think that works as a code name."

"It's not a code name!" Willow stamped an intangible foot.

"We do have to find her," Akira said grimly. "Fast. If this just hit her costume she's some kind of fainting Victorian princess and she's in trouble. If it hit the whip," he shuddered, "then _we're_ in trouble."

"Because of a whip?" Willow shook her head, confused.

"Whip?" Xander scanned their surroundings, picking out the nearest screams. "What whip?"

A giggle drifted down from the sky.

 _I was right._

 _Damn it_.

* * *

 _Pink_ , Willow thought, staring up as her friend floated in the sky. Pink hair, pink lips, a translucent pink glow surrounding skin, whip, and a now black-and-shadows lacy dress.

The face was Buffy. But the eyes... those gray eyes were scary.

Willow flinched back as Buffy giggled again; thumped against Akira's supporting hand, and forced her shaking knees to hold steady. If Akira wasn't running, maybe it was more dangerous to look afraid-

 _Wait. He's solid?_

Oh. Right. Light and shadow creatures were... kind of tangible, kind of not. Giles' books had had a bunch of arguments and conflicting stories; Akira had confirmed that he'd seen kokuchi vary just how solid they were, along with a couple of snarky observations about a shin who could walk through doors yet always be tangible enough to eat cake. Which was one reason kokuchi were sometimes mistaken for ghosts, because if you could only half-see them then they were only half-solid-

"Aww... where's the fight? I was having so much fun!" Not-Buffy pouted, coiling her whip. "Even though Shirogane-sama wasn't there yet. He's so _pretty_ when he's mad!"

 _Shirogane?_ Willow tensed, and tried to keep her voice to a whisper. "Is she talking about your friend?"

"Yes." Akira's voice wasn't any louder. "Willow. Don't let her hit you."

Xander stepped cautiously back, gaze sweeping roughly where pink and black hovered. "Okay, what am I not seeing?"

"Trouble," Willow admitted. "Something I don't think you can shoot. Maybe I can hit her-"

"No!" Akira hissed. "Don't try! Just _run!_ "

"Akira!" Not-Buffy clapped her hands together and wriggled in pure glee. "Ooo, that gorilla-girl is so _mean!_ She wouldn't tell Lulu where you went. But you're right here!" She was bouncing in midair, smile bright as a kindergartener with a double-dip cone of chocolate marshmallow. "Yay, yay, Akira came out to play..."

"Back up slowly," Akira said under his breath. "Get to Giles. Fix this." He swallowed dryly, face as grim as Buffy's had been going after the Master. "I'll keep her busy."

"But where's Shirogane-sama?" Lulu was tapping a finger against pouting lips. "If Akira's out to play, then he must be here somewhere... Ooo! He's so _dreamy._ " She hugged herself, gleeful as a teenage girl with backstage tickets to her favorite boy band. "Where's Shirogane-sama, Akira?"

"Ch'. Like I'd tell you." Akira took a long stride forward, grin as casually confident as Willow had ever seen it.

"Oh-kaaaay," Lulu sing-songed, raising one hand, fingers spread and glowing even more fiercely. "Then I'll just beat you until he comes out!"

Dark tore the air above her glowing fingers. A rift in the night, opening to a sea of red-glowing eyes.

 _Kokuchi. All those are... oh god!_

Knives blazed into Akira's grip, translucent silver. _"Run."_

* * *

 _Turkmenistan all over again_ , Operative Harris thought ruefully, double-timing it after the fleeing specter. Hopefully he could find some kind of chaplain or local traveling spirit-healer to break the news to her _very_ gently. Until then - well, he'd learned his lesson about trying to convince ghosts they weren't actually corporeal anymore. Hopefully a California party girl would be a little less dangerous than a Kazakh who'd been tortured to death for the unforgivable fault of not being Turkmen. But he wasn't about to count on that.

A glance behind showed no red eyes, though he could still hear something fighting up in the sky back where they'd been. "Think we lost them for now." Calm and level, that was the way to talk; frightened spooks were dangerous spooks. "Whoa, whoa; walk, don't just stop. Helps you breathe better." Not that spooks had to breathe; the supernatural kind, anyway. But it might make her more coherent. "Did you see who opened that rift? I couldn't locate the source."

The redheaded ghost jerked around, mingled hope and bewilderment on her face. "You saw the tear? The kokuchi?"

A California Valley-girl ghost knew the _Japanese_ term for the shadow-monsters. Oh joy. This situation was even more screwed than it looked. "Yes, Ma'am," Harris said plainly. "I did see the swarm of nasty killer monsters." Though the knife-hands were actually the easier ones to deal with. The centipede types possessed civilians, and that was all kinds of messy. He brushed a hand over his rifle, checking it was in decent condition. "Bullets can hit them, you know. But you have to target the right spot. And even if you get it, they don't slow the lead down much. Urban area like this, that makes for a high risk of collateral damage." _Make that suburban,_ Harris thought, slinging the rifle and drawing his combat knife from his boot sheath. He hated to let monsters get that close, but without some high-grade salt or enchanted slingshot pellets, it was the only way to get a decent hit in on creatures that weren't quite solid. _American town. How the hell did I get here? If I was on leave I'd have concealed weapons; if this were an assignment, I ought to have the nice stuff that goes boom. What's going on?_

When in doubt, ask a local. "Fill me in," Harris said plainly. "I get the feeling I only saw half of what was going on." Maybe less. Miss Ghost Willow had been talking to _someone_ , but the way she'd tensed and whispered, that someone had been almost totally focused on someone _else_. That he couldn't see.

 _Oh, I hate invisible targets. Where's the kosher salt when you need it?_

"Oh... boy." The redhead took an intangible breath; he could _hear_ it, but it didn't so much as ruffle his hair. "Um, Buffy - she's our friend, really, only - her costume turned her into some kind of bad guy who controls kokuchi."

Possession by way of costume? Hell, why not; he'd had the usual rundown on cursed objects taking people over, even if none of them had ever been a kid's costume. _Really not good; if it's just a surface mind-warper we've got time, but if it's a soul-jar, we need to find a counter or a way to zap it before the person inside's gone for good_.

"But it's going to be okay!" Willow babbled on. "Akira is... he turned into someone like that too, but he knows who he is and who we are and what's going on. He's going to - to keep things under control, until we can find Giles and figure out how to break the spell."

 _Damn. We need to move_ fast.

Because on the one hand, good, her friend Akira remembered he wasn't really a shadow-controlling monster. On the other - Akira knew _Buffy_ wasn't a shadow-controlling monster. Which meant he'd hesitate. Pull his punches. _Not_ go in for the killing blow.

 _She'll kill him. And then she'll come after the rest of us_.

She didn't even have to come after them personally. Not if she was opening rifts for the shadow-monsters to swarm through.

 _Kokuchi. Willow knows the Japanese name. Odds are Akira's her source. If he knows that much, maybe we shouldn't write him off just yet_.

If Akira lived through the night, Harris had to get his name and contact info. The Nightstalkers could always use another source on the things that went screech in the night.

"Okay, running from the kokuchi who want to shred us," Harris stated. "Where should we be running _to?_ You said you know somebody who might be able to fix this?"

"Giles!" Hope lit her face. "He's our librarian."

Harris wanted to facepalm. A librarian?

Then again, if some of the Old Scotland Yard Brits were right, a librarian had been key to bringing down the last major mummy rampage in Egypt. So go book-guys.

"But we were supposed to be looking after trick-or-treaters." Pale, Willow glanced back towards the sounds of kokuchi screeching and being dispersed, and around at chaos and bedlam. Cackling witches sailed above on broomsticks. Metal was _shing_ ing against metal in a way that said there was a swordfight going on down the nearest alley. A block away, a mini-lightning bolt crashed down.

"Can you tell for sure which are the kids, and which are the monsters?" Harris said pointedly. "Even if you can - if you asked them to come into safe cover, how many do you think would listen? The best way we can keep them safe is to _stop this_."

For a moment Harris thought he wasn't going to make any headway. The ghost of a civilian was still a civilian. They weren't used to making hard choices.

"You're right." The redhead's shoulders hunched, and there was a sad glimmer in her eye. But she looked around the streets again, obviously shutting out what was happening to focus on where they were, and where they had to be. "We can use the phone at Buffy's house. This way!"

A civilian who could turn off the tears, because more people would die if she didn't. Harris winced. Damn it, he'd joined up to keep people safe from messes like this.

 _Ask the Padre to put a few extra prayers in for her when we get back to base_ , Harris decided. _Might help her get where she's going_.

And if it didn't, and she took the whole _not alive anymore_ situation okay - heck. Sometimes what ghosts needed was a chance to help, before they moved on. To do the things they wished somebody had done for them, before the Grim Reaper came calling.

Harris smiled as he ran, even if it was a little sad. Hard way to join up, but he'd give her the pitch.

 _Every Nightstalker team can use a friendly spook_.

* * *

 _Ah, card catalogs_. Giles sighed in happy relaxation, shuffling small manila cards back into their proper order where careless teenage hands had disarranged them. Thank goodness for the paranormal world's hush on Halloween. For this night, he could simply be a librarian, with no more pressing concerns than whether or not a student had failed to renew a copy of _Watership Down_ -

The phone rang.

 _Blast_. "Hello?"

" _Mr. Giles?"_

The Watcher raised a surprised brow. "Xander? Is something amiss?"

" _You could say that."_ The young man's voice was oddly wary. _"I'm calling for a Miss Willow Rosenberg? Apparently living ghosts can't pick up phones."_

...And some uncanny creature had just decided to pour ice down his spine, apparently. "Living _what?_ "

" _She said Akira called it an_ ikiryou _?"_

Ah. The Japanese term for what most so-called paranormal researchers in the West called an out of body experience. Oh dear. That would be perilous enough at the best of times. On the Hellmouth... well, that couldn't be good. "Can she speak over the phone? Where is Akira? And Buffy?"

" _She's trying but evidently you can't hear her,"_ Xander said briskly. _"Summing up, sir - Willow says people turned into their costumes. We've got monsters and mutants roaming the streets. Willow went as a ghost and was lucky enough to remember who she is. But she says Akira and Buffy went as something she calls_ shin _-"_

"Oh, dear lord," Giles breathed.

" _Sorry, sir, it gets worse,"_ the young man sighed. _"Willow says Akira knows who he is. Buffy_ doesn't. _She thinks she's somebody called Lulu. And she's summoning kokuchi. And apparently chasing Akira. I think he's in trouble, sir."_ A pause. _"Any ideas what caused this, or how we break it?"_

For a moment the Watcher had no words. Whomever Xander had gone as for Halloween was obviously expecting a calm, professional response. And for that instant, he didn't have one.

 _Buffy thinks she's Lulu. Bloody hell_.

" _Despite what Shirogane might think,"_ Shuichi had told him on the phone that night, after the shin king had vanished and Giles had snared another cup of tea, _"the shin Akira really needs protection from is Homurabi. Akira and Ryuuko wounded him gravely, and a Shadow King never suffers affronts lightly. But Homurabi isn't stupid. He'll send his Children to strike at Akira first. Nanaya is dead; weapons enchanted with light are a nasty way for shin to die. That leaves Homurabi with four Children, unless he creates new ones..."_

Hiryu, a woman whose hair and eyes were as blue as the ice that obeyed her commands. Sawaki, pale blond and sharply dressed, whom Shuichi said had murdered Ryuuko with the blade of his hand. Shiki, a short-haired punk who could shape shadow matter into deadly archery and razor disks. And Lulu, whose dark whip could steal the breath and strength from a foe... if she bothered to use it, when she could summon and control kokuchi, leaving the wrecks of possessed people in her wake.

 _If Akira's a shin he may have an even chance against her_ , Giles thought, trying for calm.

Or he would, except that Lulu was Homurabi's Childe. One of the strongest shin. To stand a chance against her, Akira would have to be one of Shirogane's...

Oh. Oh lord, it _made sense_.

Akira's affinity for shadow, to the point hakua seemed to recognize him on sight as an ally against the tears. Shirogane's intense interest in the young man's continued well-being, going so far as to play messenger with arcane weapons and a reference work on some supernatural creatures even Giles had never heard of before. That odd slip of tongue Shuichi had almost made when they'd been speaking of what should and shouldn't be affected by enchanted salt, Akira's offhand comment that Ryuuko couldn't bring his full power to bear, the near-lethal damage the Rei King's spirit had done leaving Akira's body...

Not to mention that somehow Akira had been turned into a shin, yet he remembered _who he was_.

The Watcher took a deep breath, and made himself let it out slowly. _Shirogane is going to_ kill _whoever did this_.

Which meant he'd best determine who, exactly, _had_ done this. Giles shoved his glasses up, thinking fast. "I don't have enough information to accurately identify the cause at this time, Mr. Harris. But I do have some ideas where I should start researching. Is there any way you could bring some of the affected individuals to the library? There are some tests I can only do in person."

"Huh. Risky, but doable," Xander said thoughtfully. "Let me check with Miss Rosenberg, see if we can work out a fastest route-"

Over the line, something roared.

* * *

A/N: ikiryou - living ghost, spirit wandering outside the body.

"A fastest route" - I know the grammar is weird, but I've run into this used in military parlance, where "fastest route" may be defined in multiple ways. For example, the fastest way to get to spot X if you're using cover, versus fastest with a specific mode of transport that can't go off-road, versus fastest if you just don't care who sees or shoots at you.


	8. Chapter 8

_Halloween's supposed to be a quiet night!_

Angel dragged Cordelia into Buffy's house - under Xander's _cover fire_ , and what demented soul had let Loserboy have a gun - and tried not to panic. He'd been looking forward to a peaceful night of making a casual sweep through the graveyards for stray vampires, then meeting Buffy post-kids for... coffee. Or something.

Nearly getting fried by an evil redhead in a long black coat and rescuing Cordelia from a Sasquatch had not been on his list of things to do tonight. Seriously, Sasquatch? Weren't they supposed to haunt the woods north of here? By at least a couple hundred _miles?_

"You can't shoot them, they're kids!" Willow was almost wringing her hands as Angel slammed the front door behind them.

"Miss, I can't shoot _anything_ besides the ground. There are too many things behind my targets. But big noise scare monster. Kids or no kids." Xander was giving him a cool, assessing look, that made Angel's demon want to bare his teeth. "And who are you?"

"Not funny, Xander," Angel started.

Somehow Willow had gotten past him. "Okay, your name is Cordelia, you're not a cat-"

"Seriously? What is your damage, Willow?" Cordelia put on a convincing casual glare, if you couldn't hear her heart hammering in panic. "Where's Buffy? Isn't she supposed to handle craziness like this?" She glanced back at Angel again, and pulled off the black cat ears to ruffle her hair back into studied disarray. "Heck, where's Akira? The Japanese are supposed to be all about cosplay. I thought he'd be right in the middle of anything this weird."

Angel tried not to grimace. He still wasn't sure what to think about the Japanese Hunter. On the one hand, Akira had had enough sense to know a demon-summoning was more than any normal human could handle, and he'd stayed clear of the frat boys so someone could back Giles up while the Watcher cast any banishment spells they needed. On the other...

Angel couldn't forget the cold bite of arcane steel. His demon had _snarled_ at it, angry and afraid in ways only sunlight had ever managed to make Angelus feel before. Akira had come closer to taking him down than any Hunter since the gypsies had cursed him, Buffy included. If he got much older, the kid was going to be _dangerous_.

And Hunters never trusted Slayers. Ever.

But for now, Akira was watching Buffy's back. As long as he did that, Angel intended to let him live.

 _So why isn't he here now?_

And why was Willow staring at Cordelia's cat-eared headband, as if it held the answers to everything? "Your costume didn't change!" the redhead blurted out.

"Yours sure did." Cordelia rolled her eyes. "What were you going for, Early Sunset Boulevard streetwalker?"

"Hey." Xander's quiet word grabbed Angel's attention more quickly than any shout. "Ladies, let's not fight. The costume's important?"

"Everyone who changed into their costumes - the costumes turned real," Willow said in a rush.

And Xander had dog tags and a very realistic gun. Not good.

"If we can let Giles take a look at who was and wasn't hit by this," Willow hurtled on, "then he can figure out what did this-"

"What did Buffy go as?" Angel cut her off.

The redhead swallowed. "Um. Can you see... Giles called them mares, and moroi?"

"Yes," Angel said shortly. Most vampires could only sense the intangible monsters, not see them. Then again, most vampires couldn't be torn apart by the serpentine shadow-beasts, either. The gypsies had had a pretty good idea how vulnerable a demon cursed with a soul would be. "Don't ask. Buffy went as a living nightmare?"

"So no change there, then," Cordelia quipped.

Xander stifled a snicker.

Angel bit back a growl. Sometimes Angelus just wanted to eat both of them.

"Hey, don't get all grr snarl at me, cute fangs," Cordelia said archly. "If she's one of the monsters, she'll be safe, right?"

"I think so," Willow nodded. "Akira's keeping her busy but I don't know how long he can we should _go!_ "

Right. Library, Watcher, dusty reference tomes-

Something screeched outside, with a heavy beat of wings. There was a crackling of fire.

Xander shouldered his rifle, eyes hard. "Let's try the back way."

* * *

 _Cemeteries are good, night, pretty much empty_ -

Akira crashed through the door of a dusty mausoleum, head ringing.

" _Aiyeee!"_

"Sorry... miss," Akira decided, eyeing the doubtful collection of horns, floppy ears, and other body parts mostly hidden under a tattered brown bathrobe. In the background he could smell hot chocolate, and something that might have been bubble bath. "It's going to get a little loud here tonight."

" _It's Halloween! Nothing happens on Halloween!"_ The oni clutched what might have been curlers in her mane. _"What the hell's going_ on?! _"_

Rolling to his feet, Akira snorted, already calculating the best angle to dodge out. "When you find out, tell me-"

Pink floated in. "Eww!" Buffy stamped her foot in midair as the startled oni shrieked louder. "Ugly, ugly, _ugly!_ " The black void of a tear opened over her hand, full of red eyes. "Squish it!"

 _I can't believe I'm doing this_. Grabbing a brown-clad arm, Akira bolted out the shattered door.

" _Aiyeee!"_ A gnarled fist tried to thump his head. "Let me go, vampire!"

"Vampire? Do I look like one of those-" Swearing, Akira dropped the terrified demonic bystander behind one of the more solid memorial statues. "Just keep your head down!"

 _Good advice,_ Akira thought, as hissing swarmed him. _Wish I could take it_.

Knives in hand, he danced with shadows.

* * *

Dragons torching local shrubbery. A laughing redhead in black fighting ninjas alongside a white-dressed blonde flying on wings made of crystalline keys. A horde of something like sandy jellyfish, being chased by a white-haired wolf-tailed cowboy, a mini-yellow bear with a pirate patch, a blond with cooking knives, a redhead carting a glowing green marble, and a really ticked-off woman with purple claws, tail, and dragon wings.

 _I am never, ever,_ ever _dressing up as a monster for Halloween again_ , Cordelia swore to herself as they ran. _Ever_.

She might not be a computer geek, but she wasn't an idiot. She'd been hit by spells before. Just because Buffy and Giles and the rest had broken Amy's curses then, didn't mean they'd be able to break these now. Especially if Buffy was currently stuck in this one without her memory.

 _Damn it, why did Snyder have to grab the library geeks for Halloween escorts?_

Though maybe that wasn't completely fair. The principal had signed up anybody who hadn't moved fast enough. Akira wasn't the only one he'd cornered in detention.

 _That spoiled chocolate milk landing on the lunch lady? Totally not my fault_.

Though probably Akira had been the only other person stuck in detention who'd believed it. Jocks and jock-girlfriends had snickered and whispered behind their hands; Akira had just rolled his eyes and nodded toward the door as Snyder left fuming.

 _It's the troll. What can you do?_

Right. It wasn't like she could tell Snyder that it wasn't her, she had better aim. Even if she did. Partly thanks to Akira.

"Sunnydale is a Hellmouth," he'd told her, one morning not long after the whole Parent-Teacher mess when she'd been away from her clique a moment. "There will always be monsters. Do you want to depend on the rest of us getting lucky, or do you want to be able to stomp the small fry the way the queen of Sunnydale High should?"

She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't one of Sunnydale High's bad girls. She _wasn't Buffy_.

But damn it, Akira had had a point.

...Not to mention he had the simple _good manners_ not to make it obvious Cordelia was taking tips from the loser crowd. Death was easy. The damage to her social status from being seen as one of Buffy's little hangers-on would _never_ go away.

"I knew an idol back at Kiriba Private High School," Akira had stated when she raised that little sticking point. "He couldn't afford to let his image crack. Ever." He'd given her a sharp look. "And unlike him, you think about the future. Somewhere there aren't school obituaries every week."

Cordelia had crossed her arms, and given him her best haughty sniff. "And you don't?"

"There will always be monsters." Akira hadn't smiled. "And one day, I won't get lucky."

Which had completely thrown the rest of her day, to the point that even therapeutic shoes shopping hadn't helped. Akira - classy, cool, snarky Akira, one of the few bright spots in a Sunnydale school day of constantly keeping her perch on the top of the social heap - believed he wasn't going to live long enough to worry about being branded a loser.

Even with the Scoobies on the case. Even with _Buffy_ in town.

 _Xander used CPR on Buffy last year. Because she... died_.

Even shoes and ice cream hadn't let Cordelia sleep well after that.

So she'd picked up the monster-notes Akira slipped into her locker, and studied them as fiercely as she studied cheerleading moves. She was _not_ going to die because some idiot demon decided it wanted high-school munchies.

Which was why she was running with the losers and Angel now, as they dodged down streets and through alleys. Vampires could be kept out by thresholds. Dragons, demons, and who knew what else was loose tonight? Not so much.

 _Just hope Giles can open the doors for us_.

* * *

Having Willow walk through his shelves was not the most unsettling experience of Giles' life to date. Quite. Eyghon still held one of the top rankings there, with Amy's witchcraft, the Master, and Shirogane close behind. It was still _unnerving_ , enough to send shivers down his spine.

 _Living ghost. She's alive. Cling to that_. "Willow? The others-"

"Xander - Harris, I guess - told me to get in here first so you could have the door open right when they get here," Willow said in a rush as they headed for the library door. "He said it was the best way - Giles, he had to _ask_ us how to get into the school! I told him Akira would take the skylight 'cause he's kind of ninja, but we're kind of not, so... Angel said we could come in through the tunnels, but Harris got this _really weird_ look, and he asked me where the sewers went, and I said Buffy takes them all over town to chase the vampires, you can get _anywhere_ in Sunnydale underground, almost, and he started muttering something about coincidences and enemy action..."

Had he indeed? Interesting. "Do you know what Xander went as?"

"A soldier, I think... it's weird, Giles. They're not just stuck in the costumes, they _changed_. Xander's got... gun clips, and things I know he wasn't wearing, 'cause I would have seen... not that I was _looking_ , you know, but... Buffy's hair went all pink, and Akira - his eyes are red. Not a scary monster-red," she almost fell over herself saying as they reached one of the outer doors. "More like rubies, or that guy from Final Fantasy, really pretty... I think he _knew_. What he looked like. But how would he-?"

Dangerous waters, that. "You might recall that he has far more experience with Shadowfolk than we do," Giles said dryly, listening for any suspicious noises outside before he went to work on the locks. "It's very likely he modeled his costume on an - ally." So to speak. Oh dear.

"Oh. Yeah. That makes sense." Willow brightened, then swallowed nervously. "You should have seen the way he winced when Buffy got that whip."

"...Whip." Oh blast.

"It was... kind of a joke?" Willow tried. "Xander - well, Buffy looked really frilly, and I guess he wanted her to have something in case something non-fangy didn't know she was the Slayer and tried for munchies. But Akira was just wincing, and he said she looked like Lulu, and... well, I guess being Lulu's better than a Victorian princess, with all the crazy monsters and heroes out there..."

 _Oh, dear_.

"He told us to _run_." Willow's voice was very small. "Giles. Who's Lulu?"

"One of Homurabi's shin." Giles kept his tone matter-of-fact. Ending the spell had to be their first priority. And he had no doubt it _was_ a spell, now; Willow's call had given him time to perform a low-powered magical detection ritual, and traces of it were scattered all over his map of Sunnydale. "Akira's survived her before, remember that."

"Wait!" Willow squirmed ahead of him, passing through his chest in a shivery chill. "Let me take a look first."

She stuck her head out the door. Literally. Giles winced, and sighed. "Must you?"

Willow popped back inside. "Here they come!"

* * *

The lady oni, no idiot, had ducked out of sight behind a nest of concrete angels. A few stray kokuchi hissed and circled; Akira kept an eye on them as he perched on a headstone and tried to catch his breath. Good thing he was a shin right now. Even Kengo would have had a hard time bouncing back from the hits he'd taken tonight.

 _The question is, how strong is this magic? And what happens when it's over?_

Physically, Buffy ought to be okay. The Slayer could sleep off injuries that would send an ordinary human to the emergency room. Mystically... Lulu had summoned a _lot_ of kokuchi.

 _Not much I can do about that_. Akira searched the sky as well as the mausoleum wreckage, looking for a pink glow and the feel of another shin disturbing the boundary. _Except run. I'm faster than she is. If I can draw this out long enough for Giles to find a solution_...

Only if he did that - this was Lulu. She wouldn't get sweaty by actually _running_ after him. She'd take a short cut.

 _She'll shadow-walk. Oh, hell_.

A human could cross into the shadow world and survive, _if_ a shin was protecting them, so their doppleganger didn't shatter. Nanaya had done it to kidnap Kengo and Aya; he and Shirogane had done it to bring their friends to fight Homurabi.

 _But Buffy thinks she's a shin. She won't protect herself. Whatever I do, I can't let her shadow-walk_.

 _Which means I have to figure out how to keep Lulu_ entertained. _Damn, I wish Aya were here_.

Footsteps, not as quiet as Aya's, each tread coming down on the boundary with a ripple like raindrops on water.

 _Huh. So that's why vampire attacks can cause tears_.

The muscled group tromping into the cemetery couldn't be anything else, even if Akira had somehow missed Spike's bleached-blond hair. Buffy was right; being a vampire killed most people's fashion sense.

"'Ello there." Spike's grin looked human, but it was all teeth. "Slayer's little knife-happy friend, is it? All dressed up and no place to go?"

 _Must be a dozen of them at least_ , Akira judged. _Plus some little monsters he picked up along the way. Put those together with the kokuchi, I could be in serious trouble_ -

Akira blinked, recalculating the odds. And grinned.

* * *

 _Never a good thing when a Hunter smirks like that_.

Spike slowed his advance on Akira's tombstone, senses alert for any sign of a trap. Dru had said Halloween would be different, and the Slayer wouldn't be herself at all. Which meant this was the time to pull off a vampire's most brag-worthy hat trick, and bag himself a third Slayer.

But nothing was ever as easy as it looked, and Akira's effortless stance perched on carved granite... bothered him.

 _Humans can have good balance, seen it before. But it's as if the bloke doesn't have to work at it. Like he doesn't weigh more than a shadow-monster_...

 _Oh, bloody hell_.

There they were, circling in the moonlight; knife-handed, reptile-centipede beasties. Shadow-monsters. _Moroi_ , to use the name you found in dusty tomes with dustier owners. Creatures most vampires could only sense, not see. Only he'd been cursed enough to have a Seer as his sire; and sometimes he wanted to break every living neck, because when Dru saw things in the shadows, she _wasn't crazy_ -

A girlish giggle tickled the air.

 _When did the Slayer dye her hair_ pink?

Not enough of a warning sign to get his minions to slow down. The floating in midair bit should have - but they were looking anywhere else, as if they couldn't _see_ what was hissing at them...

 _Oh, bugger. They can't_.

"New people to play with!" The Slayer actually squeaked, like Dru going after a sparrow. "Ooo, Akira's been so _mean_ , making me run after him all night." She clasped her hands together over her bosom, eyes starry with glee. "But now you're here!"

Supernatural, invisible to most vampires, and looked like an attractive human. All hallmarks of the most dangerous critters that went snarl in the night.

 _Right_ , Spike thought, chilled. _Out of here_.

Carefully. _Very_ carefully. A subtle retreat, to save face; his minions were already starting to glance at him as if they wondered what he was on, looking at thin air-

Buffy held up splayed fingers, and darkness roared into existence.

 _Some kind of portal? Dimensional hole?_ Spike wondered, trying to sneak faster. _What's the Slayer playing at- oh, bollocks!_

Moroi swept screeching through the tear, red eyes gleaming, three of them plunging _inside_ some of his minions.

The Slayer tittered. "Now Akira's going to be running around all night, trying to save silly people..." She trailed off, casting a dark look at the Hunter still poised on his tombstone. "Why aren't you trying to save them?"

"Why should I?" The punk finally moved, leaping light as a bloody grasshopper.

Translucent blades sheared through a moroi's black flesh, and it exploded in a rain of red sparks.

Akira landed on one of the spikes surmounting the cemetery wall, not even bothering to nod at gravity as he smirked Spike's way. "After all, what's the point of saving a dead corpse that's already possessed?"

Screeching in rage, the moroi-held minions leapt after the Hunter, black claws sprouting from their hands and game faces on.

Buffy reeled back in midair, like a bint who'd inadvertently sampled prime spider. _"Ewww!"_

Forget saving face. Spike ran for it.

* * *

 _Please don't let them be dead_ , Willow chanted to herself, as Harris and Giles guided Cordelia's faltering feet around yet another fallen body of someone who'd gone with the knife-through-the-head trick for Halloween. Angel had gone on ahead with barely a grimace, scouting through the shadows for bigger monsters they'd have to detour around. _Please_...

"Willow." Harris' voice wasn't as comforting as Xander's, but it sounded like he was trying. "Don't look. There's nothing you can do for them. So don't look."

 _How can anyone not look?_ "How can somebody do something like this?" Willow stammered. "Ms. Calendar just uses magic to protect, Mr. Wagatsuma sent us healing stuff, a-and we only ever use spells to _stop_ the demons-" The words stuck in her throat.

"Oh, well go you," Cordelia bit out. "Obviously the monsters didn't get the memo about your shiny little morals. Oh, wait - Amy's mom was human, wasn't she? And guess what? Sometimes people are just _evil_." She stumbled back up onto a sidewalk, and kept moving. "Like when they snatch the last pair of Jimmy Choos on sale. Or wear stripes with plaid. Seriously, people, that is a crime!"

Giles rolled his eyes. "Young lady..."

"Hate to say it, but Miss Chase has a point," Harris said. "You have to stop thinking of magic as _mystical_. It's a tool. Like a crowbar. You can pry a boulder off of somebody, or you can bash their brains out. Magic doesn't care."

"Not quite true," Giles stated. "In some spells, intent matters a great deal. But magic was first and foremost a _weapon_ , Willow. Humanity's first weapon against the monsters, forged in fear and desperation. One does not make the wisest choices when in terror of one's life, and the lives of those one cares for..." Behind glass, the Watcher's eyes went hard.

Willow almost bit her fingernails, as Harris slowed them all to a deliberate walk. What was wrong now? There weren't any monsters in sight, just Angel blending into a pool of shadow, some shattered storefronts, and a bunch of people led by football-jock Larry in a pirate bandanna.

 _Um. Pirates weren't always the good guys, right?_

"What 'ave we here? A pair of lovely ladies of the night, looking for a good time?" The pirate leered at them, a gust of strong drink wafting to Willow's nose. "Well, lads, I'd say they've _found_ one-"

Harris raised his head, and stared at rum-soaked eyes.

"...Well." The pirate faded back a step, hand near his cutlass. "No 'arm in asking the ladies, is there?"

"Sometimes there can be a lot of harm," Harris said levelly. Gun not _quite_ pointing at the pirate. "We've got somewhere to be. And so do you. Ladies, Mr. Giles..."

"Actually," Giles nudged up his glasses, glowering at the one undisturbed storefront in a way that should have set it on fire, "I believe we've arrived."

Willow swallowed, as streetlights picked out the sign she'd seen just hours before.

 _Ethan's_.

* * *

 _Shirogane was right about one thing_. Sweating, Akira held off fangs with one blade while he stabbed the other deep. _It's a lot easier to beat kokuchi if you don't care if the victim survives_.

With a howl, the last of the originally possessed vampires burst into ash.

Unfortunately, the kokuchi he hadn't been able to cut down had taken over every vampire who hadn't run, and there were at least a half-dozen more still trying to tear him to pieces.

 _Halloween sucks_.

Akira backflipped away from a kokuchi's scything blades, twisting past two vampires so they tangled with each other and another snarl of shadow-creatures. Kou had taught him how to dodge in a hundred running street fights, and he'd needed all of that painful experience tonight. So far he'd been banged up, bashed, and bruised, but he hadn't been bitten.

 _Yet_ , Akira thought darkly, breathing hard as he slashed through yet another over-eager kokuchi. _I'm... tired._

 _I wish Shirogane were here_.

He could be away from here in moments. In Japan, with help and friends to destroy anything that followed him. If he only dared.

 _It might kill me. And if I walked through the shadows, Buffy would follow, and she_ would _die. I can't_.

Yet he could feel his arms tremble as he raised his knives for the next attack. If this went on much longer...

 _I am not going to die here!_

"Ooo!" Buffy stomped a foot in midair, a kitten-growl in her throat. "I wanted to play some more, but not if more of _these_ things are going to crawl out!" She folded her fist around shadow, reached toward her heart-

And pulled out a long, black whip.

... _This is going to hurt_.

* * *

There was nothing quite like the fanged bug-on-windshield expression of a vampire who'd run straight into his threshold wards, Ethan mused, grinning.

...Ripper's fist in his face did add a bit of sting to the glee, he had to admit.

 _Damn, that tweed blends into shadows too well... p'rhaps I should've made the cobwebs on the ceiling just a bit thinner, they dim the lights... good old Ripper. Snuck in first, let the vampire be a distraction. Well, two can play that dirty_ -

 _Cha-click_.

 _Erk_. Ethan arrested his attempt to counter by grabbing the Watcher's danglies, and instead stood very slowly, shifting his head just enough to miss one of the luminescent toy spiders hanging from a gray thread. When dawn broke that piece of steel and lead would likely be a toy again, but for now the gun looked quite lethal. And the expression behind it, even more so.

"Is this the guy?" the soldier for the night said coldly.

"Hello, Rupert," Ethan drawled through a split lip. "It's been a while."

"I could have stood for it to be far longer." Rupert's eyes were hot with a rage Ethan hadn't seen in far too long, as two girls skirted the angry vamp and more dangling cobwebs to follow the soldier in. "I should have known it was you. This horror stinks of Ethan Rayne."

"Horror?" Ethan arched a brow as he backed up, doing his best to keep gun and incensed Watcher in view. If he could sidestep that way, toward the statue, the boy wouldn't be able to shoot without endangering the ladies-

The soldier moved to match him, casual and cold. Dash it all.

"I'd say I sold hopes and dreams," Ethan smirked, gauging his opponents. Two dangerous men, the redheaded adept-potential who'd gone for a ghost, and a teenage high school queen whose most lethal weapon would be cutting remarks. This wasn't over, not by a long shot. Even if they managed to shatter the statue... or perhaps, especially if they managed that. He hadn't lasted this long as a chaos mage without knowing when to keep tricks up his sleeve.

 _Or a bit higher up. Heh, heh, heh_...

That, and knowing how to find weak spots. "Proper, prim, _tweed_ Watcher, guardian of all that's right and just, eh?" Ethan grinned, shifting in place just to make the soldier-boy twitch. That, and get him standing under one of the thicker fake cobwebs. This could be interesting. "How's your Slayer, Ripper? Enjoying her night as a frail, frilly female, helpless as a fly in amber?"

The Watcher... _smiled_.

 _May have lathered it on a tad too much_...

"You," Ripper said, very quietly, "have _no idea_. Right now, Ethan, your only chance for survival is to tell us how to break the spell... before she finds you."

Despite himself, Ethan swallowed dryly. _When in doubt, stall_.

* * *

Blades cut shadow. Muscles burned. Sweat stung nicks from flying debris; not claws, thankfully, if it were claws he'd be down, he _knew_ how bad kokuchi venom was-

 _Don't think. Just move_.

A pivot on a stone wingtip, and the black whip seared past him to snap a kokuchi into sparks. Akira pushed off into a shadow-fast flicker, slicing through another, rolling into a forward somersault that took him into position to stab a third through what passed for a spine-

And then he had to spin fast, as a tangle of not-quite-dead bodies hurtled through where he'd been, black claws gouging and tearing. "My blood-bag! My blood-bag!"

Fangs stabbed back, as the last two possessed vampires tried to shred each other and any stray kokuchi to pieces to get to the living blood of the shin. "You're too ugly for her!"

" _Aaarrrgh!"_

"You two should hit Vegas," Akira gasped, unsteady on the torn-up soil of the graveyard. "Wonder if the UV in spotlights is enough to do vampires in-"

Ice. And acid.

 _Reverse-grip, backhand strike-!_

The screech clawed down Akira's nerves like nails on a chalkboard. Hearing was pain, his shoulder was pain-

The kokuchi imploded.

Venom was still eating into his left shoulder, like someone dripping iced vinegar into his veins. Yet the centers of the ice were hot, two fangs like branding irons caught in muscle and bone.

 _Move! They're going to swarm you, Lulu's not_ stupid-

Hissing, the kokuchi backed away, one kicking the still-struggling ball of possessed vampires behind a nearby crypt.

 _What's going on?_

Buffy floated through the shadowy throng, pouting at him like he'd bought her the wrong flavor of ice cream. "Where _is_ Shirogane-sama?" Against all reason, her stomp on air had an audible _thump_. "He should be here by now!"

 _If I were still under his contract, he would be_ , Akira thought, darkly amused. A King could sense when his Childe was wounded.

 _But I'm not Shirogane's. And Buffy's not really Homurabi's. Buddha be thanked_.

Being bitten changed everything. Kokuchi venom could kill a _real_ shin, much less a magic-crafted fake. He had to find a way out of this. Fast.

Buffy huffed, pale cheeks pink with irritation. "Well, if the kokuchi aren't enough to send a message, this will be!"

 _Not fast en_ -

The world went gray as a thunderstorm-torrent, sound and sight vanishing in _cold, pain, can't breathe_...

The black whip was tight around his chest as Akira fought back up to one knee, swaying against the feeling of emptiness. _Keep... moving. Cut the whip_...

The chill... eased. Sleet instead of howling winter. Akira blinked, trying to focus.

Buffy was blinking at coils of darkness, fingers caressing the whip's handle like a startled cat. Gray eyes met ruby, curious, as she drifted closer.

 _Wait for it, wait, you'll only get one clear shot... have to take her down without_ killing _her_...

Gray eyes went wide. _"Ooo."_

 _Now!_

He might as well have tried to slice a sunbeam. Buffy wafted out of range, giggling with glee. "Ooo, Shirogane-sama's so _careless_."

Gasping for breath, Akira tried to shake his head clear. _Huh?_

Whip still coiled about him, she was waving a scolding finger almost in his face. "Homurabi-sama would _never_ have left you alone like this. Someone might... _take_ you."

Behind her a rift opened, pale sky full of the ebony-black stars of home-

 _The shadow world. Not home. She's going to use me as bait to get Shirogane-!_

* * *

 _This is taking too long_ , Cordelia fumed, trying to edge around the sounds of Giles... _questioning_ Ethan, and ooo boy, she _so_ did not need to know their librarian had a scary right hook...

Eek. The backroom looked like one of the Scoobies' study sessions gone horribly wrong. Dusty books open with red silk bookmarks and bags of chips holding them down. A pattern drawn on leather in candy-corn, that made her eyes hurt if she looked at it too long. A bowl of what she knew was blood - and she knew just who to blame for _why_ she knew that, thanks.

And in the middle, a glowing statue with two faces.

"A-and then, you plunge the affected person into a hawthorn-laced ritual bath..."

 _Stalling_ , Cordelia knew. _Just like Dad with the IRS_.

Only this was a mage stalling, and between the movies and what she'd overheard from the library crowd, usually pounding the stuffing out of a mage broke their concentration. No concentration, no spell. Simple. Easy.

 _And so not working_ , Cordelia decided _. Okay, glowing statue, probably magic, and all this stuff scattered around... not a spell. A_ ritual.

 _I got this_.

Wishing she believed in luck, Cordelia held out a hand. "Harris? Knife."

Startled, Xander handed over the heavy blade.

Gripping the handle, she swiped it across the pedestal, the flat of steel striking marble in a blaze of green-blue sparks.

 _Crash_.

* * *

A/N: Stray costumed characters include Axel from Kingdom Hearts, Kairi/Naminé from the Dead Fantasy vids (Monty Oum!), and the whole gang from Sands of Destruction.

And yes, Ethan reads Pet Shop of Horrors. He would find the Count _inspiring_.


	9. Chapter 9

It was like a wind passing over the ocean. One moment he was Operative Harris, hell-bent on making sure the chaos mage who was their target put everything back the way it was supposed to be-

Then he was Xander again, cradling a toy rifle in sheer disbelief. Giles had... his friendly neighborhood G-man had actually beaten somebody bloody-?

 _Willow!_

No longer ghostly. No longer here, from what he could see, and man, he hoped that was a good sign-

Sticky gray dropped over him like a weighted net, full of eyes.

 _Spiders... spiders... gah!_

"You _jerk!_ " Cordelia shrieked, somewhere in the cobwebs nearby. "Do you have any idea what it's going to take to repair this hairstyle after I get this gunk out?"

"Oh, feisty," Ethan said gleefully. "Too bad you're a bit tied up at the moment, eh?"

"Ethan," Giles growled, "if you hurt them-"

"As if I'd have to." Ethan wriggled free of the webs with a satisfied sneer. "Oh come now, Ripper, didn't you see this coming? Janus is duality. Make the false real; make the real, fake. Until the spell is broken. And all your little helpers went back to being frightened little brats again. While mine... well, I won't insult you with the obvious."

The obvious being the swarms of hungry silver-black spiders the size of dinner plates, chelicerae chomping in anticipation. Xander gulped.

 _Wait, chelicerae? How do I know - oh, right, Harris was in that Mayan temple after those ugly Teotihuacan artifacts. Spider-worshippers. They went in prepared... man, what I'd give for a web-dissolver and a flamethrower!_

He didn't have either. What he did have was an overwhelming desire to _panic_. "Giles... these things are gonna eat us!"

"I doubt we'll be that lucky," Giles said grimly. "Hypaepan demon-spiders. Adult females. They'd rather paralyze us and... er. Well."

Yeah. Panic time.

 _The time you want to panic, is the time you absolutely cannot, soldier!_

Old advice, from a drill sergeant who'd... probably never existed. But that didn't mean it wasn't real. So he didn't have weapons? He had a brain, the most dangerous weapon issued to any soldier, and he knew spiderwebs. Struggling just got you more tangled. What you had to do was calm down, and _pull_.

"I swear I'll bite you to death!" Cordelia was yelling, twisting her head back and forth to face the scuttling swarm. "Every last hairy one of you! Don't you _dare_ put those fangs on me, buster!"

 _Good girl_ , Xander thought fondly, as the first strands started to pull away... and the first legs neared his arm. _Cover the Watcher whispering Latin- wait, what?_

A puff of foul smoke, and Giles dropped free to the floor, stomping on spiders. "Ethan! You milksop, addle-pated bar sinister offspring of a diseased mule and a desperate incubus! Kill me if you will, but help me get them out!"

"Ha!" Grinning, Ethan turned to saunter out the open door. "Ta ta-"

Windows shattered.

"Ta," said a silver-haired man suddenly _there_ , tipping a black-brimmed hat over the coldest smile in the world.

* * *

Falling out of the sky _hurt_.

"Owowow!" Buffy winced, glad her body was hers again. Except- "Why does gravity have to _work?_ "

Rubbing an ankle, she flicked her gaze around the wrecked cemetery. It looked like the kokuchi had mostly headed back across the boundary when Lulu had opened the rift to drag Akira off-

"Akira!"

Oh no. He was so _still_.

 _Still breathing_ , Buffy told herself fiercely, feeling the pulse in the left side of his neck. Carefully avoiding the black, broken-off fangs buried to the root; even a Slayer might be taken down by that much pure poison.

 _Akira's been risking this every time the kokuchi break loose. We have_ _got to get on top of sealing tears_...

She was _not_ going to cry in frustration. "Don't you die on me!" _CPR - no, he's breathing, has a heartbeat, what next?_ "Giles will rub his glasses to death. Xander won't know where to keep up with the whole learn how to fight gig. And Willow will look _sad_. There's nothing sadder than a sad Wills. She'd even be sad about that demon-lady... and I really, really hope that lady doesn't eat people because my god, I messed up her night with _bubbles and hot cocoa_ , I am the worst person _ever_ -"

"You need to get him to help."

Ack. Lion-haired demon-lady in a bathrobe, twelve o'clock. And... that awful green wasn't skin, it was a _facial_ , and oh boy could she feel any lower? "Can you help him?" Buffy blurted out. "I'm sorry, I'm really, _really_ sorry, there was some kind of spell or something, we were all possessed-"

"I could help one of the Shadowfolk. But he's human now." Slit pupils narrowed at her. "And you... are the Slayer."

Which wasn't quite _you are Jack the Ripper_ , but there were definite tones there. Ow. "I don't slay anything that's not gnawing on humans." Buffy clenched her fists; made herself relax, knuckle by knuckle. "If you're not eating people, turning them into monsters, or forcing everybody to watch Smurfs reruns, we're good. Okay?"

"You actually mean that." Lioness demon lady straightened a bit. "Well, then. After tonight, ask your Watcher about rakshasa. For now... I've heard the more decent Watchers stock supplies for demonic injury. Does yours?"

"Right, Giles, first aid kit," Buffy said, trying not to panic now that she had _something_ she could do. "The library!" She reached for his shoulder... and froze. "Damn it, he's not that heavy, but - there's so much blood already. If I jar the fangs-"

"He tried to save my life," the rakshasa mused. "I'll help you carry him."

* * *

 _No answer at her house, hope she came back here_ , Giles worried, heading into the library with three tattered children, a tense vampire, and one still very incensed shin.

Still, three of his charges were safe. Willow had run into them almost as they'd come to the school entrance, clutching onto Xander as if he were the last hold against a whirlwind. Xander had held her just as fiercely, eyes wide any time he glanced back to where Shirogane trailed them. What the King of Shadow had done, searing webs and demonic spiders with leaping flames, then turning on Ethan with that same cold smile...

 _At least it was quick_.

Angel _had_ been fast enough to get through the wards after Shirogane had shattered them... but had apparently been wary enough to pull up short, hands raised and empty, when the shin had turned a cool look on him.

" _Where is Akira?"_

Bloody good question, that. Giles hoped the library would be a good place to find an answer-

"Giles!" Buffy all but ran for him as they opened the doors; whip in hand, hair decked with bits of leaves, one side of her face powdered with what long experience told the Watcher was likely bits of shattered granite. "I've got your kit out but I don't know what to do, this isn't CPR, help!"

"Buffy!" Angel pushed in, face even paler than usual with relief. "Are you okay?"

"I'm _fine_." Buffy dropped the bloodied whip on the floor with a shudder of disgust. "Akira's _not_."

 _Oh, dear lord_.

The young man was laid face-down on one of the library's sturdier tables; coat dropped over a chair, shirt torn open at the shoulder, and the Watcher's first-aid kit open on another chair beside him. Under his California tan he was almost gray, a trickle of blood still seeping from around the shadow-black fangs embedded in his left shoulder.

 _Rubbing alcohol's out, she cleaned the area, that's a fair start_ , Giles thought.

Shirogane took off one glove, feeling the pulse under the teenager's jaw. "You need to remove the fangs. Now."

"You!" Buffy paled, then flushed, stepping away from Angel's comforting hands to glare up into blue eyes. "Where were you half an hour ago, when he needed you?"

The shin held his ground, one brow arched as only a king could. "Dodging Homurabi's snares. Or would you wish him to find his way to your Hellmouth?"

"Damn. No. No way. We're not ready for him." Buffy swallowed, even as Angel glanced between them, frowning. "If we pull them out, the shock could kill him."

"If we do not, the venom _will_ kill him," Shirogane stated, unflinching. "Vampire. Make yourself useful and hold him down. He will scream."

"The _vampire_ has a name," Angel said bluntly.

"I'm certain you do." Shirogane's smile was sweet as a candy scythe. "Do you want it to be Dust?"

"You two can play who's the badder supernatural _later_." Cordelia walked fearlessly between them, even if her face was white. "Right now, we've got to... to _fix_ him." She shot a wide-eyed look at Giles. "You can fix him. Right?"

"If he's lasted this long, I hope so," Giles said soberly. "Right, then. Angel, if you would - the more firmly you hold him, the less damage we'll do withdrawing the fangs. Lord Shirogane, you're more experienced with these sorts of injuries than the rest of us, perhaps you should demonstrate the proper means of removal? Ah, and Willow," he added, seeing the redhead pale even more than Cordelia, "please look behind my reading desk for the red box with the rattlesnake icon."

"Right!"

"Cordelia, stand by the kit in case we need something else. Xander, Buffy - be ready with dressings, I'm not certain how much he'll bleed..." Giles eyed Shirogane.

"Not enough to wash the venom out," Shirogane said plainly. Straightened his shoulders, and stepped in. "Hold him."

* * *

Cold. Dark. _Weak_ ; Lulu's damn whip drained the strength out of anything it touched, and he was the weakest shin that bouncing pink menace had ever seen.

 _Not a shin. Have to fight this. Can't let her take me back to Homurabi. He'll use me to get Shirogane, and that idiot will probably fall for it even though he_ knows _it's a stupid idea-!_

From the murmur of angry voices somewhere beyond the dark and cold, Shirogane had already fallen for it. The crazy fool.

When he got out of this, he was going to kick Shirogane's ass. Because damn it, Kou and Shuichi were _right_. The balance of the world was more important than any one human life. Akira couldn't live with himself if the whole world - if his _friends_ \- slid into shadow. The last sane Shadow King had no right to risk himself on crazy rescue missions-

" _Oooowwww!"_

Something was holding him down. Something had to _die_.

But he couldn't - quite - reach his knives.

Which didn't make sense... but it didn't matter. Something _was_ going to die, as soon as he got his hands on a hard object-

Fingers gripped his reaching hand, clasping it.

 _Shirogane?_

...He recognized the touch of the shin's hand. Enough not to try killing whatever had just caused that blinding bolt of pain. There was something terribly _wrong_ about that.

"Easy, Akira. You're among allies." The shin laid his hand on something hard and flat to grip, voice cool and kind and merciless. "One more."

 _Oh fu_ -

Something broke under his fingers. It felt like wood.

"You might want to let go now that the fangs are removed, Angel," Shirogane said mildly. "And hope that Akira truly believes he is among friends." A deliberate, gleeful pause. " _My_ , that's a big splinter."

Angel was holding him? That explained the unnatural strength. "If I stab anyone," Akira gritted out, "it's going to be a _flaming idiot_ of a shin."

"You're awake." Shirogane bent to look him in the eye, and smiled. "You missed me!"

"I'll... aim better next time," Akira got out, testing the solidity of the surface under him before he dared to move. Everything hurt.

"We need to get the poison out." Shirogane's smile wasn't quite as brilliant. "I'll just-"

"If you put those lips on me," Akira gritted out, "I will die. I will die and then I will _kill you_."

"Aww, Akira-kun..."

"Before we resort to potential homicide or suicide," Giles stepped into view; a bit battered, but obviously relieved. "Perhaps you'd allow me to try the snakebite kit, first."

Akira blinked. Even his eyelids felt heavy. "Snakebite?" Wait. "Willow, Xander... Buffy..."

"What am I," Cordelia muttered in the background, "chopped liver?"

Akira had to snicker, even if it hurt. "I knew _you'd_ make it. You're as tenacious as kudzu."

"I'm the _vine that ate the South?_ Ooo, mister, if you weren't bleeding-!"

"We're okay," Buffy said, voice a little shaky. "A lot better than you... oh, ick."

 _Fair description_. Akira winced as Giles applied suction to one of the aching wounds. He hadn't forgotten how his stomach had turned seeing kokuchi poison in his own flesh; or worse, seeing it in Shirogane's, the first time he'd ever seen the shin wounded. Bad enough that the venom spread in black veins under your skin; what truly made it horrible was how it _glittered_ , getting brighter as it dissolved flesh and blood...

 _Think about something else_. "You shouldn't _be_ here." Akira tried not to gasp. "Hellmouth's... not safe."

"Oh, and Japan is?" Shirogane straightened the amulet's chain where it'd caught along his neck. "Stay calm. Your shadow is thinner than it should be. You need rest."

"Thinner?" Didn't make sense. "Picked up the Doppler when I saw it..."

"Fortunately," Shirogane stated. "Ethan Rayne's spell tampered with what no mortal should touch. Rest."

"Not likely." Akira rolled his eyes. "School tomorrow."

Shirogane chuckled. "As if that's ever a problem."

"It is, here," Akira sighed. "Call in sick, Mom has to know about it. Skip class, Snyder will make _sure_ she knows about it." Oh Buddha, just thinking about it hurt. "Can't tell her what happened. Tomorrow's not going to be fun..."

"Hmm." The Shadow King smiled. "Well, in the interests of not disturbing your mother's hard-won peace... shall we try an experiment?"

* * *

Willow approached the table reluctantly, deliberately not looking at the trashcan full of fangs and venom-stained dressings. "D-do you really think this will work?"

 _Do not frighten the humans_ , Shirogane reminded himself. _Panicked magic is unpredictable magic_. "I admit I'm not highly skilled at healing magic, but Master Wagatsuma believes this strategy will work. If it does not - I assure you, I can prevent your light from injuring him." He smiled at the redhead, doing his best to suppress the extra edge he'd use for the vampire. "Akira's much more sturdy than he looks."

...Hmm. Of all the people in this room, Willow might be the only one he was fooling.

 _Giles knows what I am. The vampire - he doesn't know, but his demon fears me. Cordelia - ah, such an_ interesting _aura under the cloak of a petty child. I'll have to find her an appropriate present_.

Xander was the truly intriguing one, though. No magic in him, beyond the traces anyone inevitably picked up near practicing adepts. But his eyes... his eyes were watchful.

 _He's not afraid_. Cautious, _but not afraid. He knows enough to know that he does not_ know _what I am. And so he watches_.

It was a relief, in a way. Akira might be cut off from easy aid from his friends and allies, but these youngsters had at least survived long enough to end Ethan's spell. Not an inconsiderable feat.

"Just move slowly, and use a light touch with your energy," Shirogane said confidently. "Everything will be fine."

Willow gulped. But the redhead straightened her shoulders, and made her face resolved. "Okay, here we go."

 _Good. She does believe in what she's doing_.

Willow plucked at the light energies in the air as a pillow-maker might pluck down, gathering it in her hands and arms as she molded it to her will.

 _And now my part_. Shirogane called shadow's power to his hands, a cool shield against bright magic. He slid it under Willow's fragile web of power, letting dark magic sink into injured flesh; just as Willow would do with light, if she dared.

 _Gently. Not too much at once. A human isn't as resilient as a shin_.

And currently, Akira was not a shin. Though for a brief time this evening Shirogane had felt the bond between them thrum into renewed life, as if Akira had never been forced to leave his side...

 _Focus. Keep him alive, first_.

Under his fingertips, Akira's human tan paled, flesh and bone knitting back together with gratifying speed.

 _Gently. Carefully. Push lightly on the exhaustion, let the mind know it can rest_.

Eyelids drooping, Akira slept.

Shirogane smiled, and let a bit more power seep into pale skin. A shadow adept might not need as much dark energy as a shin, but it wouldn't hurt to refill Akira's reserves. Just in case.

"So." Xander kept the word low and quiet, obviously eyeing Akira. "He going to be out for a while? Because it looked like that _hurt_."

"It does, and he will," Shirogane answered honestly. "I can take him home from here." This promised to be _interesting_.

"Oh yeah?" Xander's fingers fidgeted, as if searching for a weapons belt that wasn't there. "Because maybe we didn't hear this right, but it sounds like he's been hurt in kokuchi messes before. What'd you do about it then?"

"I took him to Master Wagatsuma," Shirogane said truthfully. "And then he would go home."

"And skip school if he had to." Xander didn't glance at the girls on either side, even as Buffy winced under Angel's comforting hand and Willow edged closer to Giles. Standing slightly away from all of them, Cordelia just fumed quietly. "And _nobody noticed_."

Shirogane inclined his head. "Have you met Ms. Nikaidou?"

"Briefly, yeah, but - _wait_ a minute." Xander's eyes narrowed. "Okay, parental units can miss a lot, I give you all of Sunnydale. But what about his friends? His teachers? Heck, the school janitor? Didn't anybody _notice?_ "

"I believe I may have frightened the school janitor into early retirement," Shirogane said judiciously. Not that he'd ever done anything. The man had never come close to seeing him. But after the third time Shirogane had had a vacuum go through him, he'd been a bit... vexed.

Humans tended to be sensitive to such things. At least, if they didn't live on a Hellmouth.

"The teachers were resigned to the fact that Akira generally only showed up when he had nothing better to do. And his friend was Kengo." Shirogane paused, trying to describe Kengo. "It takes an incredibly dense personality to even survive infestation by three kokuchi at once. Kengo's only injuries afterwards were from the brawl."

That had them all silent a moment. As well it should. Pity the world if they ever met Kengo. A half-trained dark adept with all the subtlety of a flamethrower on a Hellmouth? The town would be doomed.

"He said Aya was his friend?" Willow ventured.

"She was part of the school disciplinary committee, and thus responsible for attempting to make sure Akira showed up to some classes," Shirogane nodded. "So yes. She noticed that he would disappear when the windows blew out. After some of Homurabi's shin attacked her, she joined our forces. She still fights the kokuchi today." He glanced at Xander. "Does that answer your question?"

"Well, one of them." Xander casually scratched behind his head, gaze almost innocent. "Kind of have a more important one in mind. Why's Akira think he needs to go into school tomorrow? It's _Saturday_." He shot a swift glance at Giles. "It is still Saturday, right? We didn't lose a day somewhere, what with all the magic and superheroes and potential TARDISes loose out there, right?"

"So far as I can determine, all the local chronometers indicate it is still Friday night," Giles said dryly, waving toward one of the library computers. "Including that infernal device." He cleared his throat. "Although I can understand the confusion. In Japan, it's customary for school to have a half-day on Saturday, as well."

Utter silence.

"That poor guy," Cordelia got out, stunned. "Hey! Didn't we fight a war with Japan to stop them from doing horrible stuff already? What went wrong?"

Giles looked... well, Shirogane wasn't quite certain how the Watcher looked. Rather like a man caught between facepalming and a certain unholy glee.

"What went wrong, indeed." All but rubbing his hands, the librarian headed over to the shelves, pulling out at least three volumes. "I suggest you read these, then submit a three-page report on what _you_ believe went wrong."

"Ah- but-" Cordelia stammered.

"I've spoken with the English and History teachers about ways to handle some of our... students with possible test anxiety," Giles said, almost casually. "They're open to the idea of extra-credit projects as a possible substitute for up to three quiz grades."

Buffy and Xander looked at each other. Braced themselves, and held out their hands.

Heaving a put-upon sigh, Cordelia reluctantly accepted her books.

Giles smiled. "I do so love volunteers." He waved a hand toward the next table over. "And you can get started right now, whilst I as the responsible adult can see who's coordinating what efforts there are to ensure all the youngsters get home."

Four heads popped back up at that. "But we should," Buffy began.

"Sit, and study," Giles directed. "Your desire to help is admirable, and under other circumstances I'd send you all back out there in a heartbeat. But at the moment what we have to deal with is potentially large numbers of _lost children_ , who are unlikely to come out for strangers. Especially strangers they may have last seen become something terrifying." He frowned. "More crucially, we will have to deal with their parents. Who will _not_ be amenable to anything less than official authorities becoming involved." He rubbed at a headache. "I know it goes against the grain, but this is a case in which we truly should let the police handle it. Unless..."

Shirogane hid a smile, amused. _Oh, well played_.

Giles turned toward him. "I know you would prefer to stay and watch over Akira. But I understand that Lulu was opening a fair number of tears... well, Buffy under Lulu's possession was..."

"It may have actually been Lulu, in a way," Shirogane admitted. "Before I came here, she'd been causing quite a stir in Japan - and then suddenly vanished."

"I see." Giles didn't look happy to hear that.

 _Fair enough. I wasn't happy to hear it, either_ , Shirogane reflected. _If Lulu was here - what did she learn? There's no trace of her in Buffy's magic; what happened once Ethan's spell was over?_

But he was the King of Shadow, and such dark thoughts would have to wait. "Sunnydale is in a precarious enough state without active tears," Shirogane acknowledged, taking out a slim ledger from his coat. "You and Akira are both correct; I shouldn't stay too long. I'll do what I can, while I am here. Including herding lost human children back toward lighted streets." He offered the book, knowing from the way Giles's eyes narrowed as he took it that the Watcher had already noted Ethan's stark script on the label. "Akira will probably sleep a few more hours, unless someone disturbs him. Look after him for me?"

With a polite bow, Shirogane stepped into shadows.

 _Now you can relax, Watcher. And tell your charges what dangers truly await them, besides me_.

* * *

 _Book reports. Bleah_. Cordelia perched with her assigned books as close to Akira as she could, just watching him breathe. _Maybe_ Shadow-guy had fixed him, and _maybe_ Akira was tough enough to bounce back from ugly fangy stuff that would put even Buffy in the ambulance.

And maybe not. In case it was _not_ , she planned to be right here. Because she was no fighter or Watcher or crazy idiot willing to jump in on demons just because they were there, but she could damn sure dial 911 with the best of them.

Besides. From right here she could overhear everything. And this promised to be _good_.

"Okay." Angel kept his voice low as he stared at the shadows where Shirogane had been, cautious as a new freshman dumped into the football locker room. "Who - and what - was that guy?"

"That depends," Buffy said wryly. "Promise you're not going to do anything like run screaming, or try to break into Akira's house to get more info? Because I _know_ he's booby-trapped the place." She almost whistled. "And even if he hadn't, I'd bet anything Shirogane's putting some nasty stuff up right now."

"Why?" Angel frowned; Cordelia wondered if vampires could get wrinkles. "Why's that kid so important? So he's a Hunter. Shouldn't - whatever that guy is - be heading the other way?"

"Oh man." Buffy rubbed off some rock dust. "Where do I even start?"

Giles paused in consulting his list of phone numbers. "Buffy. Are you alright?" He glanced at Xander. "And you? I've no personal knowledge of the special forces, but I _have_ dealt with some people trained by the Council. Being suddenly plunged into that mindset could only be - well. Unsettling."

"That's... a pretty fair way of putting it, yeah," Xander admitted, rubbing the side of his head as if he were trying to erase the past few hours. "Not all bad, though. Things seem to make a little more sense. At least they did in the grr argh things trying to eat you messes, anyway. _Parasitic spiders_. Ethan was a... something I can't really say around the ladies, sorry."

Giles arched a skeptical brow.

"Fire's not a good way to go, but he was asking for it," Xander shrugged.

"Indeed he was," the librarian sighed, flipping through that weird little book of Shirogane's again. "In rather more ways than I would have imagined. Buffy?"

"I remember some weird things," the Slayer nodded, eyeing the pages. "Stuff Lulu knew. Why Akira's so good at shadows... Why did Shirogane give you a book with a bunch of adepts in it?" She pounced, flipping to one of the last ink-marred pages. "With _Willow_ in it? Ooo, he better be glad he's dead!"

"It was Ethan's," Giles said grimly. "I'll have to do some cross-checking to be sure. But I do recognize a few of these names. Some of them are missing. More of them are dead." He took a deliberate breath, and sighed. "I never wanted you to have to deal with this. The Slayer should deal with supernatural evil, not human malice. But if Ethan found Willow - others may come looking."

Willow gulped. Angel grimaced.

"You know about this?" Buffy stood to her full mini-height, trying to look determined when even Cordelia could see she was afraid. "What do you know? Who'd be after Willow? _Why?_ "

The vampire winced. "Some people... aren't very good people."

Oh great, they were all going to dance around the obvious and get nowhere, Cordelia thought. She didn't have time for this. "Does the word _duh_ mean anything to you? Hello, they put up with _me_. I think they can handle knowing their fellow man can be mean and nasty and even lacking in personal hygiene. Which, now that I think about it - you go down into those sewers _on purpose?_ What, were you raised under a freeway?"

"If you'd ever helped Buffy out down there, you'd know they're pretty clean in the upper levels," Angel said, just a little stiff. "You can get across most of town without dealing with much more than running water."

"Yeah, I bet you can," Xander said under his breath. Caught their looks, and smirked a little. "Just thought of an essay idea. Sunnydale history and development. That's a really... _well designed_ drainage system."

Cordelia kept her expression blithely annoyed, with all the skill she'd developed at her parents' cocktail parties. Somehow, Xander had pegged the sewers as important. Eww. But then again, this was _Sunnydale_. Full of ghoulies, ghosties, and un-manicured beasties. _Eww_ was practically a job requirement.

"What I believe Angel meant to say is, there is a rather sordid and thriving black market, in the demon world, in human trafficking," Giles said bluntly. "Sometimes for the mere purposes of food. Other times, for more esoteric nourishment or ability. And one of the most valuable commodities, to certain buyers, are humans with some amount of magical power, but not enough to be lethal to would-be captors."

Willow went white. Cordelia swallowed hard, and hoped she wasn't tasting supper on its way back up.

"Adepts." Buffy was almost as pale as the redhead. Shivering a little in place, like she wanted to _hit_ something. "Ethan was... was selling adepts."

"A spell like this, everyone confused and crazy, all kinds of people could go missing," Angel sighed. "No one would even know where to start looking." He shrugged, doing nice things to the lines of that jacket. "I've heard about a few incidents that sound a little like this. Camden, Hackney; London, Ontario; even a weird kind of riot in Berkeley. Adepts went missing after all of them."

"Oh. Peachy." Xander crossed his arms, looking chilled and ticked off. "If Shirogane didn't get him, we should have."

"Shirogane _would_ have gotten him," Buffy said grimly. "Ethan had no idea what he was messing with. Heck, _Homurabi_ would have gotten him eventually. The Kings _need_ Children, they have to have adepts around..." She blinked at Giles' frown. "What?"

"If Ethan was searching for adepts..." The Watcher eyed Akira where he'd huddled on himself on the table. "Willow, you and a few other local names are listed. Akira is not."

"But - he's an adept," Willow protested.

"He's a _really powerful_ adept." Buffy grimaced. "I think Shirogane did something to hide him."

"Ah. I suppose that would make sense," Giles nodded. "He had to balance a rei king, after all. That would naturally incline him toward being as close to a shin as a shadow adept could manage. And that would certainly stand out to mystical eyes, were it not concealed."

"Rei king?" Angel said under his breath.

Cordelia quirked her brows up. Seriously, he was supposed to be a how-many-centuries-old vampire, and he hadn't figured out the value of strategic eavesdropping?

Apparently not, because Angel gave Giles a very pointed stare. "What's a shin?"

Buffy gave him an odd second look, like he'd just confessed to sometimes wearing underwear on his head. "You know about adepts, but you don't know about shin and rei?"

"Everybody who deals with serious magic knows about adepts." Angel dusted off his hands. "They're humans with a little inborn magic. Most of them are harmless. Some of them are crazy. Every once in a while one of them gets enough of a handle on their knacks to be dangerous. I've never heard of an adept turning Hunter before. And I've never heard of _anybody_ like Shirogane. What the heck is he?"

"Hmm." Giles glanced over his books. "You are in part correct. Adepts are human... more or less. But some of them descend from people who were a bit other. Shin. And rei. Shadowfolk and Lightfolk, in some of the lore."

Angel tensed, as if he were trying to decide between doing something very unpleasant to Akira or diving back into the stacks. "Are you saying we had an _Unseelie Sidhe_ in here?"

"There are some similarities in power, but I doubt cold iron would do more than make a shin laugh at you," Giles said dryly. "Consider yourself fortunate our guest restrained himself to insults. Shirogane is no less than the King of Shadow. If he wished, he could bring through a swarm of moroi that could destroy California in a single night." He nudged his glasses. "Fortunately, he does not wish to do so."

Buffy was nodding. "No kidding. Ethan got off easy. If Akira had been in that book... whoof. Shirogane is _not_ going to be happy if something else nabs Akira before he gets a chance to ask him to be his Childe."

Erk. Cordelia felt a weird prickle on the back of her neck. She'd read a little Anne Rice, before too many Sunnydale encounters proved those stories were _horrible lies_ , so she'd run across that term before. Akira as something that went bump in the night? That couldn't be good.

Buffy shrugged at them all, looking a little sheepish. "It worked out before."

 _Erk_.

"I don't know what Lulu was thinking. But I got some of what she was _feeling_ , when she was trying to pound Akira through the pavement," Buffy admitted. "And I remember... some things she knew." She glanced at the sleeping huddle on the table. "She was looking forward to a good chase. She knew Akira was a weak shin, but he always fought _smart_. She thought she'd get a lot of... _fun_... before she dragged him off to Homurabi."

Angel glanced that way, and drew a little closer to Buffy. "People don't come back from being dragged into the supernatural. Trust me on that. Maybe he was human before, but-"

"He's an adept, not a shin," Buffy said firmly. "Don't ask me how that works. Akira said Ryuuko burned him out. I'm guessing - badness. Lots of." She gave the librarian a suspicious look. "And why are you not surprised that he was a shin?"

"I was, a bit, when I put the pieces together." Giles nudged his glasses up, though Cordelia didn't think they'd moved a fraction of an inch. "Willow mentioned that Akira transformed with his costume, yet hadn't forgotten who he was. And given I _have_ met Shirogane before this night - yes, it explains rather a lot."

"Um, stupid question time," Xander waved a finger. " _Lulu's_ a shin. How did she not know Akira left the realm of the shadowy?"

"Maybe she just missed it?" Willow rubbed her arms. "The spell turned you into what you went as, right? So, Akira went as... who he was, and Lulu said she hadn't seen him in a while, so..."

"Or they scammed her," Cordelia shrugged.

Eyes. From every direction. Ack. Damn it, why had she broken her own rules about strategic eavesdropping?

Oh well. In for a penny, in for a gold charge card. "What? You think they couldn't?" Cordelia waved a hand at Akira's necklace. Because seriously, did nobody else think that went with _nothing_ the guy was wearing? Even if he'd somehow managed to keep the chain from sliding under the collar, ouch. "They hid him from people who mess with magic, why not shin, too? He was like Buffy in Japan. Only a guy. Right? What do you think would happen to her if the monsters knew she couldn't bench-press whole vending machines anymore? It would be ugly and R-rated and..." Too many bloody memories writhed in the back of her mind. She swallowed. "It would be _bad_."

"Actually... that could have worked." Buffy had a fierce look of concentration, like a not-quite-redhead trying to find a match in the coloring aisle. "She wasn't at the big fight where Ryuuko showed up. And she likes to use kokuchi to possess people and throw them at anybody trying to seal the tears. I doubt they were big on the sharing with her. If he just acted like he wasn't going to _bother_ dropping his Doppler, and just fight human, and the rest of them got in her way before she got close..." She whistled. "Then he got dragged here. And Homurabi's still poking at Fujiyama, even though Shirogane sealed that spot but good. Lulu wouldn't have left Japan to find out otherwise."

"She makes kokuchi possess people?" Willow was paper-pale.

"Not just people," Buffy stated. "Possessed vamps? _Ugly_."

The redhead gulped. "That's - that's why he told us to run, isn't it. If Lulu had - if she could..."

"He'd have been fighting us instead of just her," Xander said heavily. "Hard enough taking one person down without killing them. Three, with no backup? He'd have been _dead_."

"No, don't think so. He's done it before," Buffy said thoughtfully. "There was this time she got the boxing and tennis clubs possessed-"

"The one time she ever did anything nice," Akira mumbled. Blinked at them, moving very slowly and carefully as he tried to sit up. "Aya wanted me in one, Kengo wanted me in the other, both of them were trying blackmail... getting _them_ de-possessed was one of the _best afternoons ever_."

She'd seen grins like that before, Cordelia realized. Usually on sharks. Or Buffy in a pound-the-monsters mood. "What'd they _have_ on you?"

Gray eyes fixed her with a level look. "No one. Will _ever_. Know."

...Ooo, Cordelia wished she'd been there for that fight. With _popcorn._

Giles had moved in to support the teen; Akira was still a little gray under his tan. "Shirogane thought you'd be out for some hours yet."

"Shirogane's a _shin_." Akira looked like if he could pry his eyelids open a smidge farther, he'd be smirking. "Most of what he is, is magic. Kokuchi venom goes after body _and_ magic. My magic may be lousy but my body's still in one piece. I'll live." He winced. "Willow. Lulu... _likes_ watching people hurt themselves. If you stayed, she would have hurt you. If you ran - you could get help. We _needed_ that."

Buffy shivered a little, and couldn't seem to meet anybody's eyes. "You wouldn't have, if I hadn't been messing around with that whip-"

"Enough. Over," Xander declared, hands pronouncing a time-out. "I brought the whip. You played with it. Akira brought up Lulu. _Ethan's_ the guy whose spell made that into one unholy mess. Not your fault." He paused. "That said, next Halloween? _Indiana Jones_."

"Conversant with history, mythology, improvisation, and succeeding with all the odds against him?" Giles raised both brows. "Excellent choice, Xander. That said - I do hope this spell died with Ethan. Quite literally."

"I've had worse nights." Akira was definitely smirking at Buffy. "We got to see Spike _run like a little girl_."

A giggle escaped before the Slayer could stifle it. "Yes, we did."


End file.
